bothy

English

A bothy in Perthshire

Alternative forms

• boothie, boothy, bothie

Etymology

Probably from booth +‎ -y.

Pronunciation

• (Ireland) IPA^(key): /ˈbʌhi/
• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈbɒ.θi/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈbɑθi/

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

Noun

bothy (plural bothies)

1. (Scotland, Ireland, Northumberland) A small cottage, especially one for communal use in remote areas by labourers or farmhands, or as a mountain shelter. [from 18th c.]
   • 1929, Josephine Tey, The Man in the Queue, The Macmillan Company:

     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man demanded the means of food and shelter in his retreat nowadays, and a deserted bothy or a cave on the hillside was out of date.

   • 1955, Robin Jenkins, The Cone-Gatherers, Canongate, published 2012, page 106:

     Often Neil sat in their bothy on winter nights and told Calum about seas he had never seen.

   • 1982, Gene Wolfe, chapter XXVII, in The Sword of the Lictor (The Book of the New Sun; 3), New York: Timescape, →ISBN, page 200:

     Then, in the evening of the second day after I had climbed from the pupil of the right eye, I came upon a shepherd's bothy, a sort of beehive of stone, and found in it a cooking pot and a quantity of ground corn.

   • 1995, Alan Warner, Morvern Callar, Vintage, published 2015, page 12:

     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.

Derived terms

• bothy ballad
• bothyman

Translations

a small cottage, especially one for communal use in remote areas by labourers or farmhands

• German: Schutzhütte (de) f
• Russian: хижина (ru) f (xižina)