Definition
An archaic unit of measurement with two distinct legal applications in English law:
1. Liquid measure. A butt is a cask or fixed measure of liquid capacity. The standard figure cited in modern legal dictionaries is 108 gallons, though Burrill's older entry — drawing on statute — places the measure for wine at no less than 126 gallons. The variation reflects the reality that the butt was originally a physical cask of variable size before being fixed by statute, and that different commodities (wine, beer, ale) carried different customary butt sizes.
2. Land measure. A butt is also a short strip or irregularly shaped piece of land, typically found at the end of a plowed field where the plow turned. In land survey usage, butts described terminal parcels that did not conform to the standard rectangular layout of surrounding strips. The related Latin forms Butta and Buttum appear in old records specifically in this land-measurement context.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Current general use treats "butt" primarily as an anatomical term, a surname, or the blunt end of an object. Wiktionary's primary definitional weight falls on surnames and informal body-part usage.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Webster's 1913 treats "butt" as a verb meaning to thrust or strike with the head, and as a word for abutting or terminating at a boundary — as in "the field butts on the road."
Editorial note: The legal senses are almost entirely invisible in ordinary modern English. The Webster's 1913 boundary-abutment sense ("to butt on") is the closest common usage comes to the legal land-measure meaning, and that connection is not coincidental — both derive from the idea of an endpoint or terminal boundary. Researchers who encounter "butt" in historical deeds or inventory records should not import modern common meanings.
Common Confusion
The liquid-capacity figure for a butt is inconsistently reported across historical sources. Black's (both editions) and Bouvier's give 108 gallons; Burrill's cites the statute of 1 Richard III, c. 13, placing wine butts at 126 gallons or more. The discrepancy is not an error — it reflects genuine historical variation by commodity and era, and later statutory standardization that not all dictionaries track equally. Researchers working with pre-modern inventories, customs records, or shipping manifests should verify the applicable commodity and time period before assuming a fixed gallon equivalent.
The land-measure and liquid-measure senses are entirely unrelated in application and should not be conflated. Context — a conveyance versus a cargo manifest — will always disambiguate.
Why It Matters in Research
This term surfaces in two very different document types, and misreading it in either context produces real errors.
In probate inventories, estate records, and customs and excise documents, a butt appearing as a unit of liquid measure must be converted carefully. Because the gallon equivalent shifted across time and commodity, a researcher who applies the 108-gallon figure to a pre-standardization wine butt from a Tudor-era record may undercount significantly. Burrill's citation to 1 Richard III (1483) is a useful anchor for the older, larger wine-butt standard.
In conveyancing records, field surveys, and manorial documents, butt as a land-measure term describes irregular end-strips in open-field systems. These parcels appear frequently in medieval and early modern English land records and sometimes in American colonial records derived from English surveying practice. The term may appear as "butt," "buttum," or in compound forms ("headland and butt"). Missing this meaning leads to misreading a parcel description as a directional or boundary reference rather than a recognized parcel type.
The Webster's 1913 abutment sense ("to butt on") is directly related to the land-survey meaning and confirms that the boundary-termination concept persisted in general English well into the nineteenth century — useful context when reading narrative deed descriptions.
Historical Dictionary Support
All four source dictionaries agree that butt carries both a liquid-measure and a land-measure meaning. Black's (1st and 2nd editions) and Bouvier's are in close agreement on the 108-gallon liquid figure and treat the entry briefly, without statutory grounding. Burrill's is the most historically precise: it cites the statute of 1 Richard III, c. 13 for the wine-butt measure, gives the older figure as "at least 126 gallons," and separately addresses the Latin forms Butta and Buttum for the wine vessel and land-measure contexts respectively, with references to Cowell's legal dictionary. Burrill's entry is therefore the most useful for researchers working in pre-modern sources, where the larger figure and the Latin variants are more likely to appear.
No historical dictionary entry addresses American usage, which is appropriate — the butt as a legal unit of measure did not carry forward into U.S. statutory weights-and-measures frameworks in any significant way and is essentially a term of historical English law.
Jurisdictional Note
Butt as a legal measure of capacity is a term of historical English law. It does not appear as a defined unit in modern U.S. or Commonwealth statutory weights-and-measures codes. Researchers will encounter it only in historical documents — English and, occasionally, colonial American records — and should treat it as a term requiring period-specific interpretation rather than a living legal standard.