Meanings
plural bothies · alternative boothie · alternative boothy · alternative bothie
- A small cottage or hut; specifically (Scotland), one often left unlocked for communal use in a remote, often mountainous, area by hikers, labourers, etc.First known use 18th c.
Often Neil sat in their bothy on winter nights and told Calum about seas he had never seen.
1955, Robin Jenkins, The Cone-Gatherers, Canongate, published 2012, page 1065 more examples
Angus painted in the most alarming colours the roads, or rather wild tracts, by which it would be necessary for him to travel into Argyleshire, and the wretched huts or bathies where he would be condemned to pass the night, and where no forage could be procured for the horse, unless he could eat the stumps of old heather.
1819, Jedediah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], chapter VIII, in Tales of My Landlord, Third Series. […], volume III (A Legend of Montrose), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC, page 328But 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man demanded the means of food and shelter in his retreat nowadays, and a deserted bothy or a cave on the hillside was out of date.
1929, Josephine Tey, The Man in the Queue, The Macmillan CompanyThen, 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.
1982, Gene Wolfe, chapter XXVII, in The Sword of the Lictor (The Book of the New Sun; 3), New York: Timescape, →ISBN, page 200The 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.
1995, Alan Warner, Morvern Callar, Vintage, published 2015, page 12It was easy then to meet with a man / shifting himself to a safer distance / to bed in the bothies[.]
1999, Seamus Heaney, Beowulf, London: Faber and Faber, page 7Synonyms: lonquhard
Synonyms & antonyms
nounA small cottage or hut; specifically (Scotland), one often left unlocked for communal use in a remote, often mountainous, area by hikers, labourers, etc.
Origin
- Proto-Indo-European*bʰuH-“to be”
- Proto-Germanic*bōþō“building; dwelling; hut”
- Englishbothy
Probably from booth + -y (diminutive suffix). Booth is ultimately derived from Proto-Germanic *bōþō (“building; dwelling; hut”), from *būaną (“to dwell, reside”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *bʰuH- (“to be”). The short vowel /ɒ/, /ɑ/, etc., in the first syllable instead of the long vowel /uː/ in booth may be due to the influence of Irish both and Scottish Gaelic both (“booth, hut”), which have the same etymology as booth.
More words from Proto-Germanic, Proto-Indo-European
Full word history & related roots →Translations
Finnish autiotupa, pirtti
- autiotupasmall cottage or hut; specifically, one often left unlocked for communal use in a remote, often mountainous, area by hikers, labourers, etc.
- pirttibuilding for workers to rest in
- majabuilding for workers to rest in
- pirttibuilding on a farm for farmworkers or other labourers to live in
German Schutzhütte
- Schutzhüttesmall cottage or hut; specifically, one often left unlocked for communal use in a remote, often mountainous, area by hikers, labourers, etc.
Irish botaí, both
- botaísmall cottage or hut; specifically, one often left unlocked for communal use in a remote, often mountainous, area by hikers, labourers, etc.
- bothsmall cottage or hut; specifically, one often left unlocked for communal use in a remote, often mountainous, area by hikers, labourers, etc.
- bothánsmall cottage or hut; specifically, one often left unlocked for communal use in a remote, often mountainous, area by hikers, labourers, etc.
Korean 보티
- 보티 (boti)small cottage or hut; specifically, one often left unlocked for communal use in a remote, often mountainous, area by hikers, labourers, etc.
Russian хижина
- хижина (xižina)small cottage or hut; specifically, one often left unlocked for communal use in a remote, often mountainous, area by hikers, labourers, etc.
Scottish Gaelic bothan, àirigh
- bothansmall cottage or hut; specifically, one often left unlocked for communal use in a remote, often mountainous, area by hikers, labourers, etc.
- àirighsmall cottage or hut; specifically, one often left unlocked for communal use in a remote, often mountainous, area by hikers, labourers, etc.
- cleitsmall cottage or hut; specifically, one often left unlocked for communal use in a remote, often mountainous, area by hikers, labourers, etc.
Spanish chozo
- chozosmall cottage or hut; specifically, one often left unlocked for communal use in a remote, often mountainous, area by hikers, labourers, etc.
Turkish çiftlik işleri barakası
- çiftlik işleri barakasısmall cottage or hut; specifically, one often left unlocked for communal use in a remote, often mountainous, area by hikers, labourers, etc.
Cite this entry
bothy. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bothy
“bothy.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bothy. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “bothy,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/bothy.
Source: bothy on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.