See also: Butcher

English edit

 
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Butcher

Pronunciation edit

  • (UK) IPA(key): /ˈbʊt͡ʃ.ə(ɹ)/
  • (US) IPA(key): /ˈbʊt͡ʃ.ɚ/
    • (file)
  • Rhymes: -ʊtʃə(ɹ)

Etymology 1 edit

From Middle English bocher, boucher, from Old French bouchier (goat slaughterer), from Old French bouc (goat), from Medieval Latin buccus (he-goat), of Germanic origin. More at English buck.

Noun edit

butcher (plural butchers)

  1. A person who prepares and sells meat (and sometimes also slaughters the animals).
  2. (figurative) A brutal or indiscriminate killer.
  3. (Cockney rhyming slang, from butcher's hook) A look.
  4. (informal, obsolete) A person who sells candy, drinks, etc. in theatres, trains, circuses, etc.
  5. (colloquial, archaic, card games) A king playing card.
    Coordinate term: bitch
Synonyms edit
Derived terms edit
Descendants edit
  • Hindi: बूचड़ (būcaṛ)
  • Swahili: bucha
  • Urdu: بُوچَڑ (būcaṛ)
Translations edit

Verb edit

butcher (third-person singular simple present butchers, present participle butchering, simple past and past participle butchered)

  1. (transitive) To slaughter (animals) and prepare (meat) for market.
    Synonyms: kill, slaughter
  2. (intransitive) To work as a butcher.
    • 2008, Monte Dwyer, Red In The Centre: The Australian Bush Through Urban Eyes, Monyer Pty Ltd, page 121:
      He tells me he now earns three times as much as he did butchering.
  3. (transitive) To kill brutally.
    Synonyms: massacre, slay
  4. (transitive) To ruin (something), often to the point of defamation.
    The band at that bar really butchered "Hotel California".
    Synonym: murder
  5. (transitive) To mess up hopelessly; to botch; to distort beyond recognition.
    I am bad at pronouncing names, so my apologies if I butcher any of your names.
    Synonyms: debase, bastardize
Translations edit
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

References edit

  • (king playing card): 1873, John Camden Hotten, The Slang Dictionary

Etymology 2 edit

butch +‎ -er

Adjective edit

butcher

  1. comparative form of butch: more butch
    • 2003, Alisa Solomon, Re-Dressing the Canon: Essays on Theatre and Gender, page 170:
      Weaver and Shaw dance together and almost immediately another butch, an even butcher butch (Leslie Feinberg), cuts in to dance with Shaw (though Shaw would kill me if she heard me call someone a butcher butch).

Anagrams edit