butcher
[boo ch-er]
- 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.
- a person guilty of brutal or indiscriminate slaughter or murder.
- a vendor who hawks newspapers, candy, beverages, etc., as on a train, at a stadium, etc.
Show More
- to slaughter or dress (animals, fish, or poultry) for market.
- to kill indiscriminately or brutally.
- to bungle; botch: to butcher a job.
Show More
Origin of butcher
Synonyms
See more synonyms for butcher on Thesaurus.combutch
[boo ch]
- butch haircut.
- Slang. a lesbian, especially one notably masculine in manner or appearance.
Show More
- Slang.
- (of a girl or woman) having traits of personality, dress, behavior, or appearance usually associated with males.
- (of a male) decidedly or exaggeratedly masculine in manner or appearance.
Show More
Origin of butch
First recorded in 1940–45; apparently from the proper name
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for butcher
Contemporary Examples
They could fix things and grow things and work with animals and do medical things and butcher pigs and put up preserves.
His family ran a butcher shop in a part of town so tough that their specialty was broken leg of lamb.
It is sold by the pound, cut to order, and presented not on a plate but on a sheet of butcher paper.
One is against a gynecologist who lives comfortably in southern France, but is known in Rwanda as the “butcher of Tumba.”
One fateful night in 2009 a team of Navy SEALs grabbed the Butcher of Fallujah—and then everything went wrong.
Historical Examples
The retailer is the grocer, the butcher, or the green grocer.
Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 5Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
My hands weighed two pounds each, and ought to have been at the butcher's.
It Happened in EgyptC. N. Williamson
"Good-night," he said, with an insolence far too fine for the butcher's comprehension.
The Slave Of The LampHenry Seton Merriman
It is meet that the same hand that slew my dear master should butcher me also!
The Merry Adventures of Robin HoodHoward Pyle
But the butcher had a sentiment for his business, and knew how to refine upon it.
Life And Adventures Of Martin ChuzzlewitCharles Dickens
butcher
- a retailer of meat
- a person who slaughters or dresses meat for market
- an indiscriminate or brutal murderer
- a person who destroys, ruins, or bungles something
Show More
- to slaughter or dress (animals) for meat
- to kill indiscriminately or brutally
- to make a mess of; botch; ruin
Show More
Word Origin
C13: from Old French bouchier, from bouc he-goat, probably of Celtic origin; see buck 1; compare Welsh bwch he-goat
butch
- (of a woman or man) markedly or aggressively masculine
Show More
- a lesbian who is noticeably masculine
- a strong rugged man
Show More
Word Origin
C18: back formation from butcher
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for butcher
n.
c.1300, from Anglo-French boucher, from Old French bochier "butcher, executioner" (12c., Modern French boucher), probably literally "slaughterer of goats," from bouc "male goat," from Frankish *bukk or some other Germanic source (see buck (n.1)) or Celtic *bukkos "he-goat." Figurative sense of "brutal murderer" is attested from 1520s. Butcher-knife attested from 18c. Related: Butcherly.
Show More
v.
1560s, from butcher (n.). Related: Butchered; butchering. Re-nouned 1640s as butcherer.
Show More
butch
n.
"tough youth," 1902, first attested in nickname of U.S. outlaw George Cassidy (1866-?), probably an abbreviation of butcher (n.). Sense of "aggressive lesbian" is 1940s.
Show More
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper