Butts

The ends or short pieces of arable lands left in ploughing. Cowell. Butt also denotes a measure of land (Jacob; Cowell), and a measure of quantity, equals to one hundred and eight gallons. See "Measure."

The ends or short pieces of arable lands left in ploughing. Cowell.

Short pieces of land left unploughed at the ends of a ploughed field, where the plough is turned; headlands, q. v.; the corners or angles of lines which separate a pai-cel of land from the lands that surround it. Butts and bounds: the lines which separate a piece of land from the lands which surround it; metes and bounds.

In old English law. Short pieces of land left unplowed at the ends of fields, where the plow was turned about, (otherwise called “headlands,”) as sidelings were similar unplowed pieces on the sides. Burrill. Also a place where bowmen meet to shoot at a mark,

[L. Lat. butta, from Fr. bouts, ends.] In old English law. Short pieces of land left unploughed at the ends of fields, where the plough was turned about, (otherwise callea headlands,) as sidelings were similar «un ploughed pieces on the sides.* See Caputia, Headlands, Sidelings. This word is very obscurely defined in the old books, "the ends or short pieces of lands in arable ridges and furrows." Cowell. A case in Littleton's Reports, however, clearly illustrates its meaning. A libel was filed in the court christian for tithes of hay, and the defendant showed that the hay was growing upon headlands and butts in cornfields. A prohibition was applied for, and allowed, the court holding that the defendant was discharged of lithe in this case by necessity, for it was relin« qoished by the turning of the plough. Litt. R, 13. Butts seem to have been untilled slips of land in the ends of fields, just as hc Uks (a term still used,) were similar untilled slips in the body of fields or commons. 2 Steph, Com. 9, note. Brande, voc. Comfrum. Both words have the radical sense of a stopping, and fuming off, or around. See Butts and hounds.