Word.ws English Dictionary

buttload

buttload noun: a regional English measure of capacity of a heavy cart (a butt), containing 6 seams, or 48 bushels, equivalent to 384 gallons.

Noun

buttload (plural buttloads)

  1. (UK, West-Country, obsolete) A regional English measure of capacity of a heavy cart (a butt), containing 6 seams, or 48 bushels, equivalent to 384 gallons.
    • BUTT LOAD: about six seams.1796, William Marshall, “Provincialisms of West Devonshire”, in The Rural Economy of the West of England, volume 1, page 324
    • The farmers near the fishing towns in the same district [Cornwall] likewise buy the refuse of bruised and small pilchards, which are rejected as unfit for curing or the market, and are called caff, four cart-loads of twelve bushels each being considered as the quantity proper for an acre. […] The...1819, Abraham Rees, The Cyclopaedia, volume 31, Salting
    Synonyms:
    buttful
  2. (New-England, Southern US, UK, dated) A large amount carried in a butt.
    • We spent all day Sunday and picked up a buttload of pecans.
  3. (broadly, mildly, slang, vulgar) Any large but unspecific amount.
    • You can collect a metric buttload of data about user activity on your site without too much effort.1999, Philip Greenspun, Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing, page 267
    • Anyway, they are paying me a buttload of money to do this series, and I want to share my good fortune with you and that's that.2004, Theresa Alan, Spur of the Moment, page 264

Synonyms of buttload

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Forms of buttload

pluralbuttloads
alternative formbutt-load
alternative formbutt load

Origin of buttload

From butt + load. Butt in this context may be possibly one or both of: * butt (“large wooden cask”) (Etymology 3) * butt (“two-wheeled cart”) (Etymology 5) Alternatively, the term may either be a corruption of English boatload or have been influenced by that term (except for the specific, West Country dialect sense). All senses above also synchronically reanalyzed as buttocksful.

Questions about buttload

What does buttload mean?
Buttload means a regional English measure of capacity of a heavy cart (a butt), containing 6 seams, or 48 bushels, equivalent to 384 gallons.
What part of speech is buttload?
Buttload is a noun.
What is the plural of buttload?
The plural of buttload is buttloads.

Words near buttload in the dictionary

  1. buttlickers
  2. buttlift
  3. buttlifts
  4. buttlike
  5. buttling
  6. buttload
  7. buttloads
  8. buttlover
  9. buttlovers
  10. buttmad
  11. buttmunch

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: buttload (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-buttload.ogg.

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