Dictionary

bothy en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ˈbɔθe/ (Scotland)
• /ˈbɑθi/ (General-American)
• /ˈbʌhi/ (Ireland)
• (Southern-England) audio
• (General-American) audio
• /ˈbɒθi/ (Received-Pronunciation)

Etymology

Probably from booth + -y (diminutive suffix). Booth is ultimately derived from Proto-Germanic *bōþō (“building; dwelling; hut”), from *būaną (“to dwell, reside”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *bʰuH- (“to be”). The short vowel /ɒ/, /ɑ/, etc., in the first syllable instead of the long vowel /uː/ in booth may be due to the influence of Irish both and Scottish Gaelic both (“booth, hut”), which have the same etymology as booth.

Meanings

1. A small cottage or hut; specifically (Scotland), one often left unlocked for communal use in a remote, often mountainous, area by hikers, labourers, etc.
   • But civilization had changed that completely. Not one criminal in a thousand now fled to the Highlands or to Wales for refuge. A man demanded the means of food and shelter in his retreat nowadays, and a deserted bothy or a cave on the hillside was out of date. 1929, Josephine Tey, The Man in the Queue, The Macmillan Company:
   • Then, in the evening of the second day after I had climbed from the pupil of the right eye, I came upon a shepherd's bothy, a sort of beehive of stone, and found in it a cooking pot and a quantity of ground corn. 1982, Gene Wolfe, chapter XXVII, in The Sword of the Lictor (The Book of the New Sun; 3), New York: Timescape, →ISBN, page 200:
   • Often Neil sat in their bothy on winter nights and told Calum about seas he had never seen. 1955, Robin Jenkins, The Cone-Gatherers, Canongate, published 2012, page 106:
   • It was easy then to meet with a man / shifting himself to a safer distance / to bed in the bothies[.] 1999, Seamus Heaney, Beowulf, London: Faber and Faber, page 7:
   • Angus painted in the most alarming colours the roads, or rather wild tracts, by which it would be necessary for him to travel into Argyleshire, and the wretched huts or bathies where he would be condemned to pass the night, and where no forage could be procured for the horse, unless he could eat the stumps of old heather. 1819, Jedediah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], chapter VIII, in Tales of My Landlord, Third Series. […], volume III (A Legend of Montrose), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC, page 328:
   • The Bog Creeper came out her wee bothy so I stood on the toilet seat and Lanna whipped her skirt down to her boots and sat. 1995, Alan Warner, Morvern Callar, Vintage, published 2015, page 12:
2. A building for workers to rest in.
3. (historical) A building on a farm, sometimes with just one room, for (usually unmarried male) farmworkers or other labourers to live in.

Forms

Deriveds

bothy ballad · bothyism · bothyman

Synonyms

lonquhard

Translations (19)

fi pirtti (building on a farm for farmworkers or other labourers to live in) · sco bothy (building on a farm for farmworkers or other labourers to live in) · gd àirigh (small cottage or hut; specifically, one often left unlocked for communal use in a remote, often mountainous, area by hikers, labourers, etc.) · ga botaí (small cottage or hut; specifically, one often left unlocked for communal use in a remote, often mountainous, area by hikers, labourers, etc.) · gd bothan (small cottage or hut; specifically, one often left unlocked for communal use in a remote, often mountainous, area by hikers, labourers, etc.) · tr çiftlik işleri barakası (small cottage or hut; specifically, one often left unlocked for communal use in a remote, often mountainous, area by hikers, labourers, etc.) · fi autiotupa (small cottage or hut; specifically, one often left unlocked for communal use in a remote, often mountainous, area by hikers, labourers, etc.) · ga both (small cottage or hut; specifically, one often left unlocked for communal use in a remote, often mountainous, area by hikers, labourers, etc.) · ru хижина (small cottage or hut; specifically, one often left unlocked for communal use in a remote, often mountainous, area by hikers, labourers, etc.) · ga bothán (small cottage or hut; specifically, one often left unlocked for communal use in a remote, often mountainous, area by hikers, labourers, etc.) · ko 보티 (small cottage or hut; specifically, one often left unlocked for communal use in a remote, often mountainous, area by hikers, labourers, etc.) · fi pirtti (building for workers to rest in) · gd cleit (small cottage or hut; specifically, one often left unlocked for communal use in a remote, often mountainous, area by hikers, labourers, etc.) · ext choçu (small cottage or hut; specifically, one often left unlocked for communal use in a remote, often mountainous, area by hikers, labourers, etc.) · es chozo (small cottage or hut; specifically, one often left unlocked for communal use in a remote, often mountainous, area by hikers, labourers, etc.) · gl chozo (small cottage or hut; specifically, one often left unlocked for communal use in a remote, often mountainous, area by hikers, labourers, etc.) · sco bothy (small cottage or hut; specifically, one often left unlocked for communal use in a remote, often mountainous, area by hikers, labourers, etc.) · fi maja (building for workers to rest in) · de Schutzhütte (small cottage or hut; specifically, one often left unlocked for communal use in a remote, often mountainous, area by hikers, labourers, etc.)