When solving a crossword puzzle or reading an interesting article, you may have come across the word “butt” or “butt”. Many may say that the answer is quite simple. But this is only at first glance.
What are ends?
In the Russian language there are about five transcripts of this word. They relate to construction, geometry, names of settlements and rivers. And few people realize that the meaning of the word "ends" is completely different. Now let's figure it out.
Butts - this is the word that came from the thieves' everyday life and means “matches”. And we can say with confidence that few people know about this. Thieves' jargon is rarely used in everyday life of ordinary citizens.
A bit about matches
The first mention of matches appeared in the Chinese Empire more than two thousand years ago. Then they looked like thin torches with sulfur-soaked ends. Such a device helped to reduce the ignition time of the source, the torch from the smoldering tinder. At that time, tinder and flint were the most common methods of producing fire.
In the Middle Ages, matches appeared in Europe. Then they had a slightly different look, and several people fought for the right to be called an inventor. But they became the most similar to modern ones at the end of the eighteenth, at the beginning of the nineteenth century.
Their feature was that each manufactory engaged in production used its technology for a combustible head. One of the inventors came up with a very sensitive compound, which could provoke firing of matches against each other by friction.
Perhaps the word "ends" is precisely about the process of making fire. After all, wooden sticks could be ignited by scribbling on any rough surface: the sole of the shoe, coarse cloth, a fairly even stone.
Other meanings of the word
Someone may be outraged and say that the ends are the side parts of any structure that are not on the “front” part of the building. They will also be right. Although you should be careful with this concept. After all, buildings with arches, a colonnade and a central entrance in a narrow part are not called an “end”.
The ends are also separate parts of the wooden tiles used to build the bridge. Most often this happened in areas where timber was abundant in the nearby forests. So in Ancient Novgorod, layers of wooden plates were stacked on top of each other for more than four centuries.
If you come across the word "ends", perhaps its meaning is much more interesting than it might seem at first glance.