buttress

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English butres, also butras and boterace,^[2][3][4] borrowed from Anglo-Norman boterasse, also botrasse, recorded from 1315 or earlier,^[5][6] apparently a remodelling of the Old French adjective in arc buteret (“flying buttress, literally buttress-arch”) (before 1235).^[5] The forms in “-es” are borrowed from Anglo-Norman boterez, apparently the same adjective altered after the suffix “-esse”.^[5] Other dictionaries derive the word simply from bouterez, in ars bouterez (“thrusting arch”),^{[7][3][8][9][4][10]} which Klein and Weekley take as the plural of bouteret (“a support”).^[11][12] The adjective comes from buter (“to push, thrust”), also bouter,^[5][13][3] a word of Germanic origin and the source of the verb butt.^[7][5][4] The OED takes it from a continental Germanic cognate of beat,^[5] and Etymonline from Frankish, comparing Old Norse bauta (“to strike, beat”) and going back to Proto-Indo-European *bhau- (“to strike”),^[13][7] though Orel finds the Germanic verb Proto-Germanic *bautaną of unknown origin.^[14] Hoad says the ending was assimilated first to “-ace” and in the 16th century to “-ess”.^[4] The verb comes from the noun.^[5][13][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A projecting structure built against a wall to support it: about 1330, in Sir Orfeo.^[5][3][13] The Anglo-Norman word is recorded a little earlier, from 1315.^[6][5]

Semantic evolution

The building term went quickly to figurative use: the verb is first recorded in the figurative sense, in about 1378 in Piers Plowman, before the literal one (1448),^[5][3] and the noun for a person or thing that upholds something dates from before 1450.^[5][13] From 1535 it was any prop, pier or abutment,^[5][8] and in 1645 a part of a fortress wall built to withstand cannon.^[5] Then the shape alone was enough: a projecting part of a hill or mountain from 1682,^[5][8] a tree root that stands out from the trunk from 1759, and a projection on a bone from 1824.^[5] Johnson (1755) defined it as "a prop; a wall built to support another wall"; his own derivation was French aboutir.^[15] Merriam-Webster Unabridged also records a horny part of a horse's hoof.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1330 – a structure built against a wall to support it.^[5][3]
• c. 1400 – verb, figuratively, to support a belief or person.^[5] Barnhart dates the same text, Piers Plowman, to about 1378.^[3]
• before 1450 – noun, figuratively, a person or thing that gives support.^[5][13]
• 1448 – verb, literally, to strengthen a wall or building with a buttress.^[5]
• 1535 – any prop, pier or abutment.^[5][8]
• 1645 – in fortification, a support on the inner side of a defensive wall.^[5]
• 1682 – a projecting part of a hill or mountain.^[5][8]
• 1759 – a root projecting from a tree's trunk.^[5]
• 1820 – verb, to conceal someone behind a buttress, in Keats (a single use).^[5]
• 1824 – a projection on a bone.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A projecting structure of masonry or other material, built against a wall to support it: Stone buttresses line the nave of the abbey.^[10][2][5]
2. Anything that gives support; a prop.^[10][5]
3. A projecting part of a hill or mountain.^[10][2][5]
4. Either of the two pointed rear parts of a horse's hoof.^[10][2]
5. (botany) A root projecting from the trunk of a tree and helping to support it.^[5]
6. (anatomy) A process or plate on a bone that supports another bone.^[5]

Verb

1. To support a wall or building with a buttress: The masons buttressed the old tower in spring.^[10][2][5]
2. To support, sustain or strengthen something, often with up: New data buttressed her theory.^[10][2][5]

Adjective

1. Of a saw blade, having widely spaced teeth with one edge perpendicular to the cutting direction and the other oblique.^[2]

Word family

• buttressed
• buttressless
• buttresslike
• flying buttress

Related words

• butt
• beat

Usage notes

In English dialects from Northumberland to Somerset a buttress was also a farrier's tool for paring a horse's hoof, by then almost replaced by the paring knife;^[16] Klein compares butteris.^[11]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
7. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c d e f g Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
11. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
12. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
13. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
14. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
16. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)