bottom n.1
1. capital, (financial) resources.
Trappan Trapt 3: He had left his Clothes behind, and therefore desires his Credit and assistance to equip him in English A la mode France; and this began to be the winding up of his bottom. | ||
Worthies (1840) II 451: Thus, beginning on a good bottom left him by his father. | ||
Harris’s List of Covent-Garden Ladies 37: She has assiduously avoided any connection with the mother abbesses, and trades entirely on her own bottom. | ||
Waterfordiana 7: The damsels here are [...] really and truly traders ‘on their own bottoms,’ since each house is inhabited by different girls who pay for their lodgings, dress, board, &c, out of their own ‘earnings’. |
2. stamina, endurance, pluck; thus bottom-man, a courageous fighter; bottomless, cowardly; note 17C–18C phr. stand on one’s own bottom, to act independently, to act for oneself; also attrib.
Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Bottom, a Man of no Bottom, of no Basis in principles, or no settlement of Fortune, or of no Ground in his Art. | ||
Science of Deference 54: I have mentioned strength and art as the two ingredients of a boxer. But there is another, which is vastly necessary; that is, what we call a bottom... There are two things required to make this bottom, that is, wind and spirit, or heart, or wherever you can fix the residence of courage [F&H]. | ||
Derby Mercury 21 Mar. 4/2: I’ll get out this yet, and win meikle good Siller, and get a Bottom of my ain too. | ||
Life (1906) II 461: Sir, he is a cursed Whig, a bottomless Whig, as they all are now. | in Boswell||
Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Bottom [...] in the sporting sense, strength and spirits to support fatigue; as a Bottomed Horse. Among Bruisers it is used to express a hardy fellow, who will bear a good beating. | ||
Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd edn). | ||
Sporting Mag. Jan. I 200/1: His strength, science and bottom give him a rank superior to all others. | ||
Sporting Mag. Aug. XVIII 261/1: Though ‘John Brown was well bred, he had no bottom’. | ||
Sporting Mag. Feb. XXV 283/1: Blake has been long looked on as a bottom-man. | ||
York Herald 27 June 2/5: ‘Bottom in fighting’ is as desirable in a bone-breaker as ‘Bottom in softing’ in a ‘bone-setter’ [...] both must spar as long as each has a leg to stand on . | ||
Boxiana I 478: Whoe’er has seen Bitton behind, / Will ne’er dispute his bottom. | ‘Chaunt’ in Egan||
Bk of Sports (1832) 74/1: No crossing for him, true courage and bottom all. | ‘The True Bottom’d Boxer’ in Egan||
Bk of Sports 46: His determination, resolution, game, fortitude, gluttony, bottom, or devil, whichever the reader likes best. | ||
Ely’s Hawk & Buzzard (NY) 15 Mar. 2/2: The Pony and Moll [i.e. two prostitutes] [...] may run on the Washington course this spring if they have bottom. | ||
(con. 1737–9) Rookwood (1857) 240: What is emphatically called ‘bottom’ was in favour of the rustics. | ||
Letter-bag of the Great Western (1873) x: Try the paces and bottom of the colonists, my Lord, and you will find they are not wanting. | ||
Scalp-Hunters III 178: It was no longer a question of speed [...] Did my horse possess the ‘bottom’? | ||
N.Y. Clipper 3 Sept. 1/5: Twentieth. Game versus bottom.—Cribb full of heroism, and Gregson no ways destitute of valour. | ||
Cork Examiner 28 Mar. 4/3: An uncommonly quick dog [...] sowing both dash and bottom . | ||
, , | Sl. Dict. | |
‘’Arry on Niggers’ in Punch 15 Mar. 113/2: Wot good’s British bottom and grit, / If when the dashed Niggers hinsult us, we can’t bang the beggars a bit? | ||
Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 29 Apr. 2/2: [H]e’s like a frisky, unbroken colt — dashing and spirited at first, but he doesn’t last. Like the colt, he’s got no bottom. | ||
How the Other Half Lives 246: The thief is infinitely easier to deal with than the pauper, because the very fact of his being a thief presupposes some bottom to the man. | ||
Mirror of Life 16 Feb. 11/1: Those who had seen what a thorough ‘bottom’ man he was in his previous displays made him favourite. | ||
Bulletin (Sydney) 5 Oct. 16/4: [I]f they could have secured the noble animal a Melbourne Cup would have been within their grasp – such ‘foot’ and ‘bottom’ did the ‘costs’ display in evading capture. | ||
Guardian 2 Oct. 🌐 [He is] not merely a smartieboots young opportunist who may have no ‘side’, but stands accused of also having no ‘bottom’. | at