butted

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of butt.

   The ram butted the fence post repeatedly during mating season.

   The carpenter butted the planks edge to edge before nailing them down.

   Note

   One spelling covers both the past tense (the goat butted the gate) and the participle (the boards were butted together). That holds for every meaning of butt: striking with the head, joining end to end, or, in Eastern Canada, cutting in line ahead of someone. The same letters also spell the past of the verb "but", which is a separate word. Only context tells the two apart.

2. 2
   adjectiveslangUS

   Having a backside of a particular size or shape, as set by the word it combines with.

   The trainer designed a squat routine aimed at big-butted athletes.

   He sketched a cheerful, round-butted cartoon bear for the cereal box.

   Note

   An American slang adjective that works as the tail of a compound: big-butted, round-butted. It is not comparable, so the size or shape goes in the first element, joined with a hyphen. Because butt itself is slang, the word suits casual talk and comic description. It does not belong in formal or clinical writing about the body.

3. 3
   verbarchaic

   Simple past and past participle of but.

   Note

   The past of a rare, archaic verb: to but is to use the word "but", which means interjecting objections. It has nothing to do with the past of butt, so here butted means someone kept answering with "but". Outside deliberately old-fashioned or playful writing, the form is seldom met. A modern reader will probably hear the head-striking word first.

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