butt cut
n.— «“There really haven’t been, in recent years, blatant cases of timber theft—where a harvester goes in to a 40-acre tract of timber and harvests it and suddenly disappears,” Bell said. One relatively large case involved a logger who diverted timber, he said. The logger was harvesting for a Poinsett County farmer who “realized that the logger was hauling what we refer to as the ‘butt cut’ of the hardwood trees to a separate mill” and claiming them for his own account, Bell said. “Probably 50 percent to 60 percent of the value of the tree is in that first cut of the log, because it’s larger and has the higher grade lumber in it.”» —“Untended timber often target of crafty thieves, foresters say” by Nancy Cole Arkansas Democrat Gazette (Fayetteville) Aug. 12, 2007. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
The exclamation shiver me timbers! has nothing to do with being cold. A different verb shiver means “to shatter into small pieces,” and timbers refers to the wooden beams that make up the structure of a ship’s hull and ribs. Sailors once used...
Scientists have named some recently discovered species of tree frogs after characters from Star Trek. Why? Because of the boops and trills and other sounds that these frogs make. And: naming your children with the virtues you hope they’ll develop as...