butcher
Americannoun
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butchers
plural
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a retail or wholesale dealer in meat.
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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
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to slaughter or dress (animals, fish, or poultry) for market.
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to kill indiscriminately or brutally.
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to bungle; botch.
to butcher a job.
noun
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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
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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
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butcherssimple
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have butcheredperfect
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has butcheredperfect
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am butcheringprogressive
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are butcheringprogressive
-
is butcheringprogressive
-
have been butcheringperfect progressive
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has been butcheringperfect progressive
Past
-
butcheredsimple
-
had butcheredperfect
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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:
As orders flood into the restaurant via online food delivery services and a walk-up window, a butcher slices through whole chickens while one cook flips thin slabs of steak and chicken on a grill.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 22, 2026
The 87-year-old former butcher has made new friends through the group.
From BBC ● Aug. 22, 2026
Batista Filho’s grandfather was working as a butcher in the Brazilian countryside when he established the company in 1953.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 10, 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
They were going to sell the old cows to the butcher.
From "The Red Pony" by John Steinbeck
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
Craig Hammond, who runs a butchers in Matfield, said he was planning to close on Thursday, saying it was impossible to stay open for "hygiene reasons."
From BBC ● Apr. 2, 2026
Illegal skin lightening products are being sold in butchers and specialist food shops across the UK as well as online, a watchdog has warned.
From BBC ● Feb. 17, 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
Gang members, housewives, whiskey swillers, beat cops, politicians, and butchers: each had a role to play, an axe to grind, and a deep loyalty to their own in the community that was Packingtown.
From "A Few Red Drops: The Chicago Race Riot of 1919" by Claire Hartfield
Add to the fact that they butchered a clutch of chances in last year's loss at Twickenham and there is plenty to put right for France.
From BBC ● Mar. 14, 2026
Animal remains were also placed in the grave, including a butchered calf.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 9, 2026
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
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
The cow had been butchered and the meat given away to old people.
From "In the Footsteps of Crazy Horse" by Joseph Marshall III
Lingjing appears to have been a butchering site where Homo juluensis processed animals such as deer.
From Science Daily ● May 9, 2026
He then breaks into song, trying his hand at the chant and butchering the delivery.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 27, 2026
Found in the Edgcote area in Northamptonshire, it has a sharp edge likely designed for butchering animals.
From BBC ● Jan. 30, 2026
One term for the scams is pig butchering, because the scammers “fatten up” their targets by entangling them in romantic relationships online and dangling bogus financial schemes, then “butcher” them by disappearing with their money.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 14, 2025
But Swift’s interests went far beyond the butchering process.
From "A Few Red Drops: The Chicago Race Riot of 1919" by Claire Hartfield
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
