butcher
Americannoun
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butchers
plural
-
a retail or wholesale dealer in meat.
-
a person who slaughters certain animals, or who dresses the flesh of animals, fish, or poultry, for food or market.
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a person guilty of brutal or indiscriminate slaughter or murder.
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a vendor who hawks newspapers, candy, beverages, etc., as on a train, at a stadium, etc.
verb (used with object)
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butchers,
present (3rd person singular)
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butchered,
past participle, past
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butchering
present participle
-
to slaughter or dress (animals, fish, or poultry) for market.
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to kill indiscriminately or brutally.
-
to bungle; botch.
to butcher a job.
noun
-
a retailer of meat
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a person who slaughters or dresses meat for market
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an indiscriminate or brutal murderer
-
a person who destroys, ruins, or bungles something
verb
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to slaughter or dress (animals) for meat
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to kill indiscriminately or brutally
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to make a mess of; botch; ruin
Synonym Usage
See slaughter.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
butchersimple
-
butcherssimple
-
have butcheredperfect
-
has butcheredperfect
-
am butcheringprogressive
-
are butcheringprogressive
-
is butcheringprogressive
-
have been butcheringperfect progressive
-
has been butcheringperfect progressive
Past
-
butcheredsimple
-
had butcheredperfect
-
was butcheringprogressive
-
were butcheringprogressive
-
had been butcheringperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of butcher
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English bocher, from Anglo-French; Old French bo(u)chier, equivalent to bo(u)c “he-goat” (from unattested Gaulish bucco-; compare Old Irish boc, Welsh bwch; akin to buck 1 ) + -ier -ier 2 ( see -er 2)
Explanation
The person whose job it is to cut up and sell meat is called a butcher. Your grandmother might go to the butcher once a week to buy pork chops. A butcher is an expert at preparing cuts of meat and poultry in a butcher shop or the meat section of a supermarket. You can also call a person whose job is slaughtering farm animals a butcher. Because this is a fairly bloody, gory occupation, the word is also used to mean a cruel, ruthless murderer. And when you really mess something up, you can also be said to butcher it — like the way you butchered that poem when you tried to recite it from memory.
Vocabulary lists containing butcher
Name That Job: Occupational Last Names
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"Zlateh the Goat"
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Selection Vocabulary 1, Unit 6
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The 87-year-old former butcher has made new friends through the group.
From BBC ● Aug. 22, 2026
I recently found A5 Wagyu striploins available at a specialty butcher near me in New York City, paying $64 for a half pound cut that served two.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 22, 2026
More than a century later, Cornell apparently still has bears turning up on campus — though university officials would now prefer students not butcher them in the dorm kitchen.
From Salon ● Aug. 8, 2026
"Store closed", reads the sign next to Alina's butcher shop.
From Barron's ● Jun. 30, 2026
When it was Nok's turn, the woman slid a bird off the roasting rack and started hacking it to pieces with a long butcher knife.
From "A Wish in the Dark" by Christina Soontornvat
"I walked to the event, waved into the local shops, the butchers and sweet shop and they're all waving back," he said.
From BBC ● May 17, 2026
The government decided not to back a previous proposal for more businesses including butchers and fishmongers to open on the public holiday.
From Barron's ● May 1, 2026
Manchester Farms Quail – Quail can be surprisingly tough to track down, even at specialty butchers, but Manchester Farms makes this delicious little bird totally accessible for home cooks.
From Salon ● Dec. 4, 2025
He explained all this to one of the company’s Hispanic butchers, who suggested he offer a burrito.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 26, 2025
Chaos—candy butchers vaulting over counters, workmen staggering out from under tent flaps, roustabouts racing headlong across the lot.
From "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen
Busy markets sold butchered meats and fast-wilting vegetables, horse carts clattered, children shouted, and men and women gossiped in coffeehouses and read from printed newspapers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 6, 2026
In 2024, Shasta County agreed to pay $300,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by a 9-year-old girl and her family after sheriff’s deputies seized her goat so it could be butchered.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 11, 2025
The 1987 movie features Schwarzenegger’s Dutch leading a multiracial band of bros on a black ops mission to eliminate guerrillas in a Central American jungle, only to be butchered by an invisible stalker from space.
From Salon ● Nov. 12, 2025
Louis Bielle-Biarrey, scorer of two tries, butchered another with a nonchalant pass slung over the top of Peato Mauvaka.
From BBC ● Feb. 8, 2025
Would survivors and relatives of the Lakota Sioux Indians butchered at the Wounded Knee Massacre, which took place just three years before the symphony’s first performance, have recognised its melodies as theirs?
From "The Story of Music" by Howard Goodall
Cornell University has clarified that its dorm kitchens are for cooking food — not butchering bears.
From Salon ● Aug. 8, 2026
Early humans often used bone implements to sharpen the cutting edges of handaxes and tools used for butchering animals.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 27, 2026
The best of them, such as “Goodbye, It’s Over,” about the butchering of a pig, rail against the cheapness of life.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 26, 2026
Lots of folks are going to blame USC and coach Lincoln Riley for butchering a Knute Rockne-born tradition that accounted for 78 straight games, not counting 2020, the COVID-19 year.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 22, 2025
Many parts of the butchering process did not require the skill of JohnnyJoyce and the other butcher aristocrats.
From "A Few Red Drops: The Chicago Race Riot of 1919" by Claire Hartfield
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