Where does “butte” come from?
Butte comes from French butte, derived from Middle French but meaning "goal" or "target," from Old French boivre, ultimately from Latin bibere meaning "to drink."
butte (English): An isolated hill with steep sides and a flat top
Definitions
- An isolated hill with steep sides and a flat top
Ancestry of “butte”, step by step
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|
| 1 | French | butte | small hill, mound, hillock; knoll; heap |
| 2 | French | but | aim; goal; third-person singular past historic of... |
| 3 | French | boire | to drink |
| 4 | Middle French | boire | to drink |
| 5 | Old French | boivre | to drink; a drink |
| 6 | Latin | bibere | third-person plural perfect active indicative of... |
| 7 | Latin | bibō | — |
| 8 | Latin | -ilis | -ile |
| 9 | Proto-Italic | -elis | — |
| 10 | Proto-Indo-European | -elis | — |
| 11 | Proto-Indo-European | -lós | Forms agent nouns from verbal roots |