Bottom is one of the mechanicals, or workmen, in the play A Midsummer Night's Dream, which I saw last weekend in Stratford (here's a review - with a picture of Bottom wearing his ass's ears). Bottom is a comic character and it is thus tempting to assume that Shakespeare called him Bottom for comedic reasons, but, reading up on the play beforehand, I discovered that his name, like the names of all the mechanicals, is related to his profession. Nick Bottom is a weaver and a bottom was, at the time Shakespeare was writing, a skein of thread or a structure around which thread was wound (cf Act IV, Scene 3 in The Taming of the Shrew -- "... beat me to death with a bottom of brown thread").
Bottom meaning 'the lowest part or surface of anything' is a very old English word -- the OED has a citation written in Old English -- but today's meaning ie posterior, or part of the body we sit on, and which meaning causes us to laugh at the Shakespearean character, only dates back to the late 18th century, well after Shakespeare.
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