Buttox - Synonyms

Synonyms

See WikiSaurus:buttocks for a list of synonyms and slang words for buttocks in many languages. For unrelated homophones of butt(ocks), see also butt (disambiguation) and bud (disambiguation)

The anatomical Latin name for the buttocks is nates ( /ˈneɪtiːz/ NAY-teez), which is plural; the singular, natis (buttock), is rarely used. There are many colloquial terms to refer to them, including:

• backside, posterior, behind and its derivates (hind-quarters, hinder or the childish homophone heinie (US usage only), strictly the whole body behind the hind leg-trunk attachment), rear or rear-end, derrière (French for "behind") – all strictly positional descriptions, as the inaccurate use of rump (as in 'rump roast', after a 'hot' spanking), thighs, upper legs; analogous are:
  • aft, stern and poop, naval in origin; in nautical jargon, buttocks also designates the aftermost portion of a hull above the water line and in front of the rudder, merging with the run below the water line
  • caboose, originally a ship's galley in wooden cabin on deck; also the "rear end" car of a freight train, considered a cute synonym suitable for any audience
  • bottom (and the shortening "bot" as well as childish diminutives "bottie" or "botty"), but the use of similar-sounding booty is artistic liberty
  • tail (strictly anatomically a zoomorphism, humans only have a tail-bone, yet the illogical "tail feather" was popularized by musicians; also used for the even more sensual phallus) and tail-end
  • trunk, in American English, particularly when describing large buttocks: "junk in the trunk"

• apple, referring to the similar shape of the fruit, derived from the 1970s. Also likened to an upside-down heart, attributed from various, popular ads of the 1970s.
• arse or ass, arsehole or asshole, and (butt-)hole – a pars pro toto (strictly only the actual body cavity and directly adjoining anal region); also used as an insult for a person. The term arse or ass is Anglo-Saxon, and over a thousand years old.
• badonkadonk – onomatopoeic US slang meaning the voluptuously bouncing, large yet firm buttocks of a woman
• booty
• breech, a metaphorical sense derived from on older form of the garment breeches (as the French culotte meaning pantoloons, via cul from Latin culus 'butt'), so 'bare breech' means without breeches, i.e. trouserless butt
• bum – in British English, used frequently in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and many other English speaking Commonwealth countries, also historically in U.S., is a mild often humorous term for buttocks, not necessarily in a vulgar or sexual context: "I've a boil on my bum, thrice as large as my thumb" (The Judge With The Sore Rump, St. George Tucker). A bum boy is an insulting term for a male homosexual.
• bumpy – a euphemistic term for the buttocks, used primarily with children
• buns, from Gaelic bun "bottom, base", mounds (cfr. Butte, a geographical mound, known since 1805 in American English, from (Old) French butte "mound, knoll") and orbs – shape-metaphors.
• bund – derived from Punjabi
• bunda – bottom, of Brazilian Portuguese origin.
• butt – the common term for a pair of buttocks in the US (singular, as one body-part; cognate but neither its root nor an abbreviation), used in everyday speech.
• cakes - slang word for buttocks
• can (a container) had an unusual development: the slang meaning "toilet" is recorded c. 1900, said to be a shortening of piss-can, the meaning "buttocks" from c. 1910, and the verb meaning "fire an employee" (to flush=dump?) from 1905.
• cheeks, a shape-metaphor within human anatomy, but also used in the singular: left cheek and right cheek; sounds particularly naughty because of the homonym and the adjective cheeky, lending themselves to word puns
• culo – (From Spanish/Italian) slang, usually meaning a woman's voluptuous, round and firm buttocks. Derived from a term for booty; in Spanish the term is considered vulgar and offensive, but less so in Spain than in Latin America.
• duffs – Ulster Irish origin
• dumper sometimes denotes the buttocks, especially when they are large.
• fanny – a socially acceptable term in print, in Canada and the United States at least, for many years before some of the bolder terms came along; and a subject of jokes, since "Fannie" can be a woman's name, diminutive of "Frances"; however, in British English fanny refers to the female genitals or vulva and is considered vulgar. The figure of a bare-bottomed lass named Fanny is ubiquitous in Provence (the southeast of France) wherever pétanque is played: traditionally when a player loses 13 to 0 it is said that “il est fanny” (he's fanny), and he has to kiss the bottom of a girl called Fanny; as there is rarely an obliging Fanny, there is always a substitute picture, woodcarving or pottery so that Fanny’s bottom is always available.
• fourth point of contact: in military slang, because of the sequence of textbook parachute jump landing
• fundament (literally "foundation", not common in this general sense in English, but for the buttocks since 1297)
• Gand or Gaand – a Hindi derivate
• hams, like buttocks generally as a plural, after the meat cut from the analogous part of a hog ; pressed ham refers to mooning against a window; brawn, a singular derived from the Frankish for ham or roast, is also used for both a muscular body part (but either on arms or legs) or boar meat, especially roast
• hurdies – Scots, origin unknown, also applied to the whole rump
• haunches
• moon was a common shape-metaphor for the butt in English since 1756, and the verb to moon meant 'to expose to (moon)light' since 1601, long before they were combined in US student slang in the verb (al expression) mooning "to flash the buttocks" in 1968.
• prat (British English, origin unknown; as in pratfall, a music hall term; also a term of abuse for a person)
• seat (of the trousers; or metaphorically) another long-standing socially acceptable term, referring to the use for sitting – but compare the sarcastic use of seat of wisdom and similar expressions, such as 'seat of learning', referring to use as target for an 'educational' spanking.
• sit-upon; has various independent counterparts in other languages, e.g. Dutch zitvlak ('sitting plain'), German Gesäß Italian sedere
• six; in military terminology, particularly in the U.S. Navy, it refers to the term "six o'clock", i. e. a point directly behind the referenced person.
• Tocus-Yidish.
• Tush or tushy (from the Yiddish language "tuchis" or "tochis" meaning "under" or "beneath")
• ultimatum (Latin, literally 'the furthest part') was used in slang c.1820s.