Buttload

Buttload.

If I were to say "use it in a sentence",

you might come up with something like

"A new car today costs a whole buttload of cash",

or something similar.

In the elephant picture above you could say

"He's carrying a whole buttload of...",

well, never mind.

In any event, the idea of a buttload is

a large amount of something, anything really,

and you'd be right, sort of.

"Close but no cigar", as others might say.

Hmmm - Close but no cigar.

Where did that one come from?

Actually, somewhere in the 'way back'

carnival barkers used to offer cigars

as a prize in their games of chance.

Hence, if you didn't win,

but 'almost' won, the carny would

advise you that you were

"Close, but no cigar".

Anyhow, back to buttload.

This is a butt.

Now we call it a cask or barrel,

but originally it was a butt,

designed to measure how much of a liquid

[usually wine or beer]

was being bought or sold commercially.

A butt held a total of 126 gallons.

A grouping of more than one butt

was called

[drum roll please]

a buttload.

So now you know.