bothy
/ˈbɒθi//ˈbɑθi/
bothy noun: a small cottage or hut; specifically (Scotland), one often left unlocked for communal use in a remote, often mountainous, area by hikers, labourers, etc.
Noun
bothy (plural bothies)
- A small cottage or hut; specifically (Scotland), one often left unlocked for communal use in a remote, often mountainous, area by hikers, labourers, etc.
- 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...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...
- 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man demanded the means of food and shelter in his retreat nowadays, and a deserted bothy or a cave on the hillside was out of date.1929, Josephine Tey, The Man in the Queue, The Macmillan Company
- Synonyms:
- lonquhard
- A building for workers to rest in.
- A building on a farm, sometimes with just one room, for (usually unmarried male) farmworkers or other labourers to live in.
Examples of bothy in a sentence
- 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:
- 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:
Synonyms of bothy
Forms of bothy
| plural | bothies |
|---|---|
| alternative form | boothie |
| alternative form | boothy |
| alternative form | bothie |
Origin of bothy
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.
Words formed from bothy
- bothy ballad
- bothyism
- bothyman
Phrases with bothy
Questions about bothy
- What does bothy mean?
- Bothy means a small cottage or hut; specifically (Scotland), one often left unlocked for communal use in a remote, often mountainous, area by hikers, labourers, etc.
- How do you use bothy in a sentence?
- Often Neil sat in their bothy on winter nights and told Calum about seas he had never seen.
- What part of speech is bothy?
- Bothy is a noun.
- How do you pronounce bothy?
- Bothy is pronounced /ˈbɒθi/ (UK).
- What is the plural of bothy?
- The plural of bothy is bothies.
Words near bothy in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: bothy (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-bothy.wav, En-us-bothy.oga.
Cite this entry: “bothy.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/bothy. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.