Soften spread; spread light coating on each breast as if buttering toast.
"That's poor old Hoky all right," murmured the Governor, buttering a piece of toast reflectively.
"He is buttering the bread of millions upon millions," said Mr. Stistick.
These very fine words, however, seem to have utterly failed in buttering the Cuban parsnips.
Then I would imitate the acts of cutting the slices and buttering them.
"Cooks are sometimes very peculiar," observed Mr. Stott, buttering his pancakes lavishly.
After buttering slab and bars, pour the candy into the enclosure.
Jennie was back at her buttering again; apparently he was to do the telling.
"The news of the war, Uncle John," added Beth, buttering her toast.
Caroline did not answer her husband immediately, but went on buttering her toast, and sipping her tea.
Old English butere "butter," general West Germanic (cf. Old Frisian, Old High German butera, German Butter, Dutch boter), an early loan-word from Latin butyrum "butter" (source of Italian burro, Old French burre, French beurre), from Greek boutyron, perhaps literally "cow-cheese," from bous "ox, cow" (see cow (n.)) + tyros "cheese;" but this might be a folk etymology of a Scythian word.
The product was used from an early date in India, Iran and northern Europe, but not in ancient Greece and Rome. Herodotus described it (along with cannabis) among the oddities of the Scythians. Butter-knife attested from 1818.
Old English buterian "spread butter on," from the same source as butter (n.). Figurative meaning "to flatter lavishly" is by 1798 (with up (adv.), in Connelly's Spanish-English dictionary, p.413). Related: Buttered; buttering.
butter but·ter (bŭt'ər)
n.
A soft yellowish or whitish emulsion of butterfat, water, air, and sometimes salt, churned from milk or cream and processed for use in cooking and as a food.
A soft solid having at room temperature a consistency like that of butter.
noun
Flattery; cajolery; soft soap (1823+)
verb
(also butter up) To flatter shamelessly and fulsomely (1700+)
Related Terms
(Heb. hemah), curdled milk (Gen. 18:8; Judg. 5:25; 2 Sam. 17:29), or butter in the form of the skim of hot milk or cream, called by the Arabs kaimak, a semi-fluid (Job 20:17; 29:6; Deut. 32:14). The words of Prov. 30:33 have been rendered by some "the pressure [not churning] of milk bringeth forth cheese."
