buttinsky
English
editEtymology
editFrom butt in (“to join a conversation or situation in which one is not welcome or invited, interject”) + -sky (a variant of -ski (suffix added to a word, name, or phrase to invoke Russianness, Polishness, or a more general Slavicness)), humorously modelled after Russian surnames, and originally and often used in the form of a surname.[1][2]
Pronunciation
edit- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /bʌˈtɪnski/
Audio (Southern England): (file) - (General American) IPA(key): /bʌˈtɪnski/, [-ˈɾɪn-]
- Hyphenation: butt‧in‧sky
Noun
editbuttinsky (plural buttinskys or buttinskies) (originally US, informal)
- (derogatory) One who is prone to butt in, interrupt, or get involved where they are not welcome; a busybody. [from early 20th c.]
- Synonyms: butterinsky, kibitzer, meddler, (Britain) nosey parker, (Australia, New Zealand, informal) stickybeak, (woman, chiefly in Jewish contexts) yenta
- I wish I had never met that nosy buttinsky!
- 1922, Sinclair Lewis, chapter XX, in Babbitt, New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and Company, →OCLC, section I, page 252:
- Well, all right then! If you think I'm a buttinsky, then I'll just butt in!
- 1933, Dorothy L[eigh] Sayers, “Murder Must Advertise. Chapter 4: Remarkable Acrobatics of a Harlequin.”, in The Five Red Herrings (Suspicious Characters): And Murder Must Advertise, Garden City, N.Y.: Nelson Doubleday, →OCLC, page 357:
- "Shut up, Garrett. I never," said Mr. Tallboy, extricating himself from Garrett's grasp and giving him a playful punch in the wind, "in my life, met with such a bunch of buttinskis as you are in this department. Nothing is sacred to you, not even a man's business correspondence."
- 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter V, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC, page 50:
- It is never pleasant for a man of sensibility to find himself regarded as a buttinski and a trailing arbutus, and it was thus, I could see at a g., that Wilbert Cream was pencilling me in.
- (telecommunications) A robust portable one-piece telephone instrument with clips, used by technicians and lines staff for testing telephone circuits or making a temporary connection to a telephone line.
- Synonym: butt set
Alternative forms
editRelated terms
editTranslations
editone who is prone to butt in, interrupt, or get involved where they are not welcome — see busybody
telephone instrument
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See also
editReferences
edit- ^ “buttinsky, n.”, in OED Online , Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, December 2021.
- ^ “buttinsky”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
Further reading
edit- “buttinsky, n.”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present, reproduced from Stuart Berg Flexner, editor in chief, Random House Unabridged Dictionary, 2nd edition, New York, N.Y.: Random House, 1993, →ISBN.
- “buttinsky, n.”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
Categories:
- English terms suffixed with -sky
- English 3-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- American English
- English informal terms
- English derogatory terms
- English terms with usage examples
- English terms with quotations
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