Bootle

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A port town in northwest England on the River Mersey, forming part of the wider Liverpool metropolitan area
2. An industrial and dockside town in Merseyside, England, lying just north of Liverpool along the Mersey estuary
3. A former seaport in the county of Merseyside in northwest England, situated beside the Liverpool city region

Etymology: "Bootle" is an alternative spelling of "boodle," and the path to it runs through Dutch. The English word came from Dutch "boedel," meaning a household's goods or estate, a sense that connects with the word's older meaning of a house or building. In English, "boodle" came to mean a collection of possessions, then a pile of money or loot, and eventually the illicit cash handed over in a bribe or a stash of stolen money. The spelling "bootle" is a variant of that same word, and it is a true doublet of "bottle," the familiar word for a container. The two forms split off from a single root, so the vessel and the bundle of goods share an ancestry, even though they now look and sound quite different.