Butts And Bounds

The lines bounding an estate; the angles or points where these lines change their direction. Cowell; Spelman.

The lines separating a piece of land from the land surrounding; v. Abuttals. Butts also means the comers or angles of such lines.

A phrase sometimes used in conveyancing, where a particular piece of land is described by enumerating the several lands or parcels which adjoin it, (or upon which it abuts) on the different sides. Properly, however, these words are descriptive of the lines which bound or circumscribe a piece of land, without reference to exterior objects, having nearly or quite the same sense as the more technical expression " metes and bounds.** In lands of the ordinary rectangular shape, butts are the lines at the ends, (Fr. bouts,) and bounds are those on the sides, or sidings, as they were formerly termed. See Buttals, Abuttals. But in lands of irregular shape, butts are the angular points, or comers, where the boundary fines stop and turn in a new direction. This has been sufficiently explained under other heads. See Abuttals, Butts. These distinctions, however, are generally disregarded in practice. A further illustration of the true meaning of butt is derived from that of mete, which, according to Spelman, is its synonyme. Jfete is from the Lat. meta, the goal of a race course, or point at which some object was set up, (like a butt or mark to shoot at,) about which the course turned, or where it finally came to an end. Spebnan, voc. Abuttare. ^