butter knife

American  

noun

1. a small knife with a dull blade, for cutting, serving, or spreading butter.

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Etymology

Origin of butter knife

First recorded in 1840–50

Example Sentences

This felt manageable until I found myself, a few weeks in, sawing at a kabocha squash with a butter knife.

From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 14, 2025

The kind you slice with a butter knife and serve on a chipped floral plate, cool and collapsing in the best way.

From Salon • Jul. 29, 2025

Cool muffins on a rack for 5 minutes, then use a thin offset spatula or butter knife to extract each from its cup.

From Seattle Times • Jan. 23, 2024

Burns’s prose pours out in dense, heavily referential paragraphs you may need more than a butter knife to cut through, and the forward engine of plot feels more like a suggestion than a fact.

From New York Times • Jan. 13, 2024

She’d gotten out a second butter knife for Bat.

From "A Boy Called Bat" by Elana K. Arnold