buttload
A regional English measure of capacity of a heavy cart (a butt), containing 6 seams, or 48 bushels, equivalent to 384 gallons.
Noun
- A regional English measure of capacity of a heavy cart (a butt), containing 6 seams, or 48 bushels, equivalent to 384 gallons.
- BUTT LOAD: about six seams. - 1796, William Marshall, “Provincialisms of West Devonshire”, in The Rural Economy of the West of England, volume 1, page 324:
- The farmers near the fishing towns in the same district [Cornwall] likewise buy the refuse of bruised and small pilchards, which are rejected as unfit for curing or the market, and are called caff, four cart-loads of...
- The different kinds of manure usually employed in this neighbourhood are sea-weed, sand, stable-dung, ashes, and fish-dung. The quantities vary so much according to the condition of the land and other circumstances that...
Synonyms: buttful
Coordinate Terms: cartload cartful wagonload wagonful drayload drayful sledgeload sledgeful boatload boatful assload
- A large amount carried in a butt.
- We spent all day Sunday and picked up a buttload of pecans.
- Any large but unspecific amount.
- You can collect a metric buttload of data about user activity on your site without too much effort. - 1999, Philip Greenspun, Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing, page 267:
- Anyway, they are paying me a buttload of money to do this series, and I want to share my good fortune with you and that's that. - 2004, Theresa Alan, Spur of the Moment, page 264:
- "Yeah, there's, like, a buttload of gangs at this school." - 2005, Napoleon Dynamite: The Complete Quote Book, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 67:
Synonyms: assload shitload boatload cartload shedload abundance battalion arseload bellyload brimful busload bucketful bucketload butt-ton bumload buttload crapflood crapload deal fuckload fuckton fuckwad gob great deal
Origin
From butt + load. Butt in this context may be possibly one or both of: * butt (“large wooden cask”) (Etymology 3) * butt (“two-wheeled cart”) (Etymology 5) Alternatively, the term may either be a corruption of English boatload or have been influenced by that term (except for the specific, West Country dialect sense). All senses above also synchronically reanalyzed as buttocksful.