different between bottom vs foundation

English

Alternative forms

• botton (dialectal)

Etymology

From Middle English botme, botom, from Old English botm, bodan (“bottom, foundation; ground, abyss”), from Proto-Germanic *butmaz, *budmaz, from Proto-Indo-European *b?ud?m?n (“bottom”). Cognate with Dutch bodem, German Boden, Icelandic botn, Danish bund; also Irish bonn (“sole (of foot)”), Ancient Greek ?????? (puthm?n, “bottom of a cup or jar”), Sanskrit ????? (budhna, “bottom”), Persian ??? (bon, “bottom”), Latin fundus (“bottom”) (whence fund, via French). The sense “posterior of a person” is from 1794; the “verb to reach the bottom of” is from 1808. bottom dollar (“the last dollar one has”) is from 1882.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?b?t?m/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?b?t?m/, [?b???m]

Noun

bottom (countable and uncountable, plural bottoms)

1. The lowest part of anything.
   • 1881, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, chapter 19

     a great ship's kettle of iron, with the bottom knocked out}}

   • No two chairs were alike; such high backs and low backs and leather bottoms and worsted bottoms.

   1. A garment worn to cover the body below the torso.

      Coordinate term: top

   2. Spirits poured into a glass before adding soda water.

      a soda and a bottom of brandy

2. (uncountable, Britain, slang) Character, reliability, staying power, dignity, integrity or sound judgment.

3. The base; the fundamental part; basic aspect.
4. (now chiefly US) Low-lying land; a valley or hollow.
   • 1751, Tobias Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, vol. II, ch. 71:

     The horses staled in a small brook that runs in a bottom, betwixt two hills.

   • 1812, Amos Stoddard, Sketches of Louisiana

     the bottoms and the high grounds

5. (usually: bottoms or bottomland) Low-lying land near a river with alluvial soil.
6. The buttocks or anus.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:buttocks

7. (often figuratively) The lowest part of a container.
8. The bed of a body of water, as of a river, lake, or sea.
9. An abyss.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Dryden to this entry?)

10. (nautical) A cargo vessel, a ship.
    • 1881, Robert Louis Stevenson, Virginibus Puerisque:

      We sail in leaky bottoms and on great and perilous waters; [...]

11. (nautical) Certain parts of a vessel, particularly the cargo hold or the portion of the ship that is always underwater.
    • November 8, 1773, [first name not given] Bancroft, in Boston Post-Boy

      Not to sell the teas, but to return them to London in the same bottoms in which they were shipped.

12. (baseball) The second half of an inning, the home team's turn at bat.
13. (BDSM) A submissive in sadomasochistic sexual activity.
14. (gay slang) A man who prefers the receptive role in anal sex with men.

15. (particle physics) A bottom quark.

    Hypernym: flavor

16. A ball or skein of thread; a cocoon.

    • the [silk]worms will fasten themselves, and make their bottoms, which in about fourteen days are finished.

17. (obsolete) Power of endurance.

18. (obsolete) Dregs or grounds; lees; sediment.

Synonyms

• (lowest part): base
• (buttocks, British, euphemistic): sit upon, derriere, ????
• (BDSM, gay): catcher

Antonyms

• (lowest part): top
• (BDSM, gay): top

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Related terms

Descendants

• ? French: bottom

Translations

Verb

bottom (third-person singular simple present bottoms, present participle bottoming, simple past and past participle bottomed)

1. (transitive) To furnish (something) with a bottom. [from 16th c.]

   to bottom a chair

2. (obsolete) To wind (like a ball of thread etc.). [17th c.]
   • 1623, William Shakespeare, Two Gentlemen of Verona, First Folio, III.2:

     As you vnwinde her loue from him, / Lest it should rauel and be good to none, / You must prouide to bottome it on me.

3. (transitive) To establish or found (something) on or upon. [from 17th c.]
   • 1790, Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, Oxford 2009, p. 26:

     But an absurd opinion concerning the king's hereditary right to the crown does not prejudice one that is rational, and bottomed upon solid principles of law and policy.

   • those false and deceiving grounds upon which many bottom their eternal state

   • 2001, United States Congress House Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law, Executive Orders and Presidential Directives, p.59:

     Moreover, the Supreme Court has held that the President must obey outstanding executive orders, even when bottomed on the Constitution, until they are revoked.

4. (transitive, chiefly in passive) To lie on the bottom of; to underlie, to lie beneath. [from 18th c.]
   • 1989, B Mukherjee, Jasmine:

     My first night in America was spent in a motel with plywood over its windows, its pool bottomed with garbage sacks.

5. (obsolete, intransitive) To be based or grounded. [17th–19th c.]
   • 'c. 1703, John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Reading and Study for a Gentleman

     Find out upon what foundation any proposition advanced bottoms.

6. (mechanics, intransitive) To reach or strike against the bottom of something, so as to impede free action. [from 19th c.]
7. (transitive) To reach the bottom of something.
8. To fall to the lowest point. [from 19th c.]
9. (BDSM, intransitive) To be the submissive partner in a BDSM relationship. [from 20th c.]
10. (gay slang, intransitive) To be anally penetrated in gay sex. [from 20th c.]

    I've never bottomed in my life.

Derived terms

• bottom out

Translations

Adjective

bottom (not comparable)

1. The lowest or last place or position.

   Those files should go on the bottom shelf.

Translations

See also

• bottommost

French

Etymology

Borrowed from English bottom.

Adjective

bottom (plural bottoms)

1. (LGBT, slang) bottom (passive in role)

Synonyms

• passif

Portuguese

Noun

bottom m (plural bottons)

1. button (a badge worn on clothes)

   Synonym: botão

English

Etymology

From Latin fund?ti?.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /fa?n?de???n/, [fa??n?de???n?]
• Rhymes: -e???n

Noun

foundation (countable and uncountable, plural foundations)

1. The act of founding, fixing, establishing, or beginning to erect.

   Synonym: establishment

   Antonyms: abolition, dissolution, ruination

2. That upon which anything is founded; that on which anything stands, and by which it is supported; the lowest and supporting layer of a superstructure; underbuilding.

   Synonyms: groundwork, basis
3. (figuratively) The result of the work to begin something; that which stabilizes and allows an enterprise or system to develop.

   Synonyms: groundwork, platform, stage

   • 2006, K P Yadav, Economic Planning And Restructuring, Sarup & Sons ?ISBN, page 44

     The implication is that the Gandhian model of growth is possible, now that Nehru's investment strategy had already laid a strong foundation for economic growth.

4. (card games) In solitaire or patience games, one of the piles of cards that the player attempts to build, usually holding all cards of a suit in ascending order.
6. (architecture) The lowest and supporting part or member of a wall, including the base course and footing courses; in a frame house, the whole substructure of masonry.

   Synonyms: base, groundwall

7. A donation or legacy appropriated to support a charitable institution, and constituting a permanent fund; endowment.
8. That which is founded, or established by endowment; an endowed institution or charity.

9. (cosmetics) Cosmetic cream roughly skin-colored, designed to make the face appear uniform in color and texture.
10. A basis for social bodies or intellectual disciplines.

Derived terms

Translations

Further reading

• foundation on Wikipedia.Wikipedia