different between buttock vs crupper

English

Etymology

From Middle English buttok, probably from Old English buttuc (“end; end piece”; also, “short piece of land”). Attested with its current anatomical meaning since 1300. A diminutive form of what is presumably the Old English precursor of butt +? -ock (diminutive suffix).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?b?t?k/, /?b?t?k/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?b?t?k/, [?b???k]

Noun

buttock (plural buttocks)

1. (usually in the plural) Each of the two large fleshy halves of the posterior part of the body between the base of the back, the perineum and the top of the legs.

   Synonyms: (crude) asscheek, cheek; see also Thesaurus:buttocks

2. (nautical) The convexity of a ship behind, under the stern.
   • 1925, Adventure, Volume 54

     There came a blast of freezing wind that made Skell shrug himself against the oaken post on which the ship's buttock rested.

Usage notes

The plural form is usually used in the singular sense for a single person's posterior, often called butt.It is rarer to refer to only a single buttock, which is then usually specified as left or right.

Derived terms

• quakebuttock

Translations

See also

• callipygian/callipygous
• dasypygal

References

• Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, Springfield, Massachusetts, G.&C. Merriam Co., 1967
• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “buttock”, in Online Etymology Dictionary

English

Etymology

From Middle English crupper, crouper, cropere, from Anglo-Norman cruper, cropere, from Old French cropiere, crupiere, from the same Germanic root as croup. Doublet of croupiere.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?k??p?/

Noun

crupper (plural cruppers)

1. A strap, looped under a horse's tail, used to stop a saddle from slipping.
   • 1663, Hudibras, by Samuel Butler, part 1, canto 1:

     Our knight did bear no less a pack / Of his own buttocks on his back: / Which now had almost got the upper- / Hand of his head, for want of crupper.

   • 1784, Alonzo Fernandez de Avellaneda, A continuation of the history and adventures of the renowned Don Quixote de la Mancha, tr. William Augustus Yardley, The Novelist's Magazine volume 16, page 112:

     he e?pied a mule's crupper, which hung to the ceiling of the room; this he took down, and tendering it to Don Quixote, went on, ?aying...

   • 1877, Anna Sewell, Black Beauty:

     Captain went out in the cab all the morning. Harry came in after school to feed me and give me water. In the afternoon I was put into the cab. Jerry took as much pains to see if the collar and bridle fitted comfortably as if he had been John Manly over again. When the crupper was let out a hole or two it all fitted well. There was no check-rein, no curb, nothing but a plain ring snaffle. What a blessing that was!

   • 1882, Edmondo de Amicis, Morocco: Its People & Places, tr. C. Rollin-Tilton:

     I sought among the mules one with a mild expression of generosity and gentleness in its eyes, and found it in a white mule with a crupper adorned with arabesques.

2. The buttocks or rump, especially of a horse.

   Synonym: croupe

3. A piece of armour covering the hindquarters of a horse.

Translations

Verb

crupper (third-person singular simple present cruppers, present participle cruppering, simple past and past participle cruppered)

1. To fit with a crupper; to place a crupper upon.

   to crupper a horse

Related terms

• curple