butchery
Americannoun
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butcheries
plural
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a slaughterhouse.
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brutal or wanton slaughter of animals or humans; carnage.
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the trade or business of a butcher.
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the act of bungling or botching.
noun
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the business or work of a butcher
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wanton and indiscriminate slaughter; carnage
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a less common word for slaughterhouse
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of butchery
1300–50; Middle English bocherie < Anglo-French, Middle French boucherie. See butcher, -y 3
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:
That film’s director, John Huston, joined Jimmy Stewart and fellow Directors Guild of America members, including George Lucas, in accusing Turner and other colorizers of cultural butchery.
From Salon ● May 8, 2026
Kakuta's restaurant has its own butchery, supplying bear meat dishes to a nearby hotel.
From Barron's ● Dec. 24, 2025
The butchery signal is clear as well:"At Namorotukunan, cutmarks link stone tools to meat eating, revealing a broadened diet that endured across changing landscapes," said Frances Forrest at Fairfield University.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 4, 2025
A shop that has housed butchery businesses for more than 100 years could face the chop unless more people use it.
From BBC ● Sep. 12, 2025
The butchery continued into 1864, as Abraham Lincoln was reelected after securing the helpful endorsement of abolitionist hero Frederick Douglass.
From "American Spirits" by Barb Rosenstock
Bennett-Parker said she researched some of Mused’s 14 other butcheries, calling neighbors and even visiting Philadelphia.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 27, 2019
Horse-eating, or hippophagy, became popular in Europe in the 19th century, when famines caused several governments to license horse butcheries.
From Slate ● Oct. 24, 2011
We hold back from the leap of despair that would let us see that human society always carries within it the capacity to commit such butcheries and think well of itself.
From Time Magazine Archive
He wants to exorcise the great butcheries of humanity.
From Time Magazine Archive
But the little boy found the butcheries rather monotonous.
From The Seeker by Harry Leon Wilson
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.
