Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. the end, the rear end, the buttocks.

[1911		R. Blakesborough Wit [...] and Customs of the North Riding Yorkshire 332: Arse-end, n. The end of a stook which rests upon the ground].
1930		J.T. Farrell ‘Meet The Girls!’ in Short Stories (1937) 295: You’re old and fat, and your can looks like the ass-end of a motor truck.
1956		J. Reynolds Woman of Bangkok (1959) 8: Young Reggie Joyce down there, saluting the arse-end of an Austin A-40.
1974		C. Loken Come Monday Morning 121: The stools were still sittin’ atop the bar ass-end down.
1977		L. Heinemann Close Quarters (1987) 26: The ass end of a salami dying in a puddle of its own grease.
1988		A. Payne ‘The Last Video Show’ Minder [TV script] 6: Yeah, well, one of ’em’s a bit foxed round the arse end.
1988		M. Atwood Cat’s Eye (1989) 319: With such an ass-end, I thought, no wonder Josef’s keeping away. He didn’t like scrawny women but there was a limit in the other direction.
1993		G.P. Pelecanos Nick’s Trip 216: There was a plastic foam cup in his right hand and the ass end of a cigar in the fingers of his left.
2000		S. Maloney Big Ask 1: It was 4.30 a.m., a Monday morning at the arse-end of winter.
2006		B. Matthews Intractable [ebook] Fred was on the ass end of his life sentence and ready for deportation.
2012		G. Johnstone ‘No Through Road’ in Crime Factory: Hard Labour [ebook] The arse end of them [i.e. rifles] is a rich wood.

2. a very unappealing place, particularly one far away from ‘civilization’; esp. in phr. arse-end of the universe, arse-end of nowhere.

1947		J. Cleary You Cant See Around Corners 86: Go to sleep and let me go home from this arse-end of the world.
1952		(con. 1920s) ‘Harry Grey’ Hoods (1953) 134: He’ll wind up [...] transferred to the ass end of Staten Island, the schmuck.
1955		D. Niland Shiralee 19: Just like them [...] to drop on to the arse-end of Australia to start their maiden journey.
1965		J. Thompson Texas by the Tail (1994) 170: That’s how it looked [...] like the ass-end of Far Nowhere.
1979		D. Maitland Breaking Out 18: Mentally, I was deteriorating into a state of extreme and critical withdrawal [...] stuck on the rim of a sun-baked, insular island down at the absolute arse-end of the world.
1982		P. Bailey An Eng. Madam 139: He went to the ‘arse-end’ of Montreal in search of loose women.
1986		R. Beckett Dinkum Aussie Dict. 57: Woop Woop: Where the crows fly backwards or ‘the arse end of nowhere.’.
1993		G. Disher Deathdeal [ebook] Logan City was thirty minutes away and it was the arse-end of the world.
1999		N. Kress Stinger 🌐 ‘Well, we’re almost to Virginia. Bridge is just a few miles away.’ ‘Pretty heavy woods.’ ‘The ass end of nowhere.’.
2002		blagged hardware 🌐 First thing I had to do was to go shopping for supply’s. Living in the ass-end of nowhere as do, that meant a trip to the local Radio Shack.
2011		J.J. Connolly Viva La Madness 142: A proper shitkicker born in the arse-end of Caracas.
2015		L. McInerney Glorious Heresies 101: [T]wo months of Christian healing in the arse end of nowhere.