Butt

Butt, as in to head butt or hit with the head or horns, dates from the 1200s. Butt, as in a barrel or cask, dates from the 1300s. Butt, as in the short or thick end of anything e.g. a rifle butt or butt of pork, dates from the 1400s. Butt as in a target, usually a stump of tree, was used for archery practice and also dates from the 1400s. Its figurative use, retained in expressions like a butt (i.e. a target) of humour or jokes dates from the early 1600s. A cigarette butt is first recorded c. 1847. Butt, as an abbreviation of buttocks, meaning one’s posterior, is mainly North American slang and dates in this sense from the mid-19th century.