In reading "Two Years Before the Mast" Dana, in telling about sailors aloft, mentioning the "bunt" of the sail.
I had heard "bunt" being used for goat butting. Naturally, I had heard about baseball "bunt" meaning to just hold bat motionless to meet the pitch. My mother was brought up in Belfast, ME, a seaport, and used quite a few sailor words.
When there was a crust on the snow, we could just lie down
on our stomachs and slide without a sled. She called that
"belly bunt". I just now disovered that it means the curving belly of some big fish. That may have influeced the description of a "bellying" of a big square sail as the bunt of the sail.
bunt 1
vt., vi.
5< ? ME bounten, to return6
1 [Brit. Dial.] to strike or butt with or as with horns
>2 Baseball to bat (a pitched ball) lightly without swinging so that it rolls within the infield, usually in attempting to advance a base runner
n.
1 a butt or shove
>2 Baseball a) the act of bunting b) a bunted ball

bunt 2
n.
5< earlier dial., a puffball6 a disease that destroys the grain of wheat and other grasses, caused by various fungi (genus Tilletia)

bunt 3
n.
5< ? MLowG & MDu, a binding, bundle; akin to BIND6
1 the sagging part of a fish net
2 the bellying part of a square sail

bunting is the stuffing you put into quilts to make them "puff up" and have a curved surface. could be cotton batting, wool rovings, or nowday, synthetic fiber bunting.

there is also trupuntto,- an type of embroidery (italian in origin) in which you baste a sheer fabric over a base, and then outline patterns with simple running or back stitch, and stuff the outlines with colored bunting to make them puff up. the color of bunting helps to create the design.

Trupunnto can also be done with silk and white bunting, and the puffed texture, and the outline create the design.

Bylow, baby buntin
Daddy's gone a-hunting
To get a little rabbit skin
To wrap his baby bunting in.