butcher
pronunciation
How to pronounce butcher in British English:
UK [ˈbʊtʃə(r)]
How to pronounce butcher in American English:
US [ˈbʊtʃər]
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- Noun:
- a retailer of meat
- a brutal indiscriminate murderer
- a person who slaughters or dresses meat for market
- someone who makes mistakes because of incompetence
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- Verb:
- kill (animals) usually for food consumption
Word Origin
- butcher
- butcher: [13] Butcher comes via Anglo-Norman boucher from Old French bouchier, a derivative of boc ‘male goat’ (this was probably borrowed from a Celtic word which came ultimately from the same Indo-European base as produced English buck). The original sense of the word was thus ‘dealer in goat’s flesh’.=> buck
- butcher (v.)
- 1560s, from butcher (n.). Related: Butchered; butchering. Re-nouned 1640s as butcherer.
- 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. Old English had flæscmangere "butcher" ('flesh-monger').
Example
- 1. It 's about the music , which is too good to butcher .
- 2. A scientist without imagination is a butcher with dull knives and out-worn scales .
- 3. For local butcher stephen millar , it was years of practice that clinched the title .
- 4. But given that the " price butcher " is six months in to a 14-year stretch , time is what he has .
- 5. It has made coats made from christmas tinsel and paper towels , put shoulder pads on the outside of clothes and turned a leather butcher 's apron into an evening dress .