butcher
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.
to slaughter or dress (animals, fish, or poultry) for market.
to kill indiscriminately or brutally.
to bungle; botch: to butcher a job.
Origin of butcher
1synonym study For butcher
Other words for butcher
Other words from butcher
- butch·er·er, noun
- un·butch·ered, adjective
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use butcher in a sentence
Hitchcock's going on about English pork butchers and how best to prepare pork cracklings.
Alfred Hitchcock’s Fade to Black: The Great Director’s Final Days | David Freeman | December 13, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTNot about encouraging aspiring butchers to live out their violent fantasies in Syria.
The butchers of the so-called Islamic State are stealing Hollywood techniques to make their propaganda films.
Picking on the tiger butchers is more likely to gain public support.
Why Do Chinese Oligarchs Secretly Love Illegal Tiger Meat? | Jake Adelstein | March 31, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTThe butchers, who play a key role in A Burnable Book, are a great case in point.
Historical Fiction: A Conversation Between Bruce Holsinger and Nancy Bilyeau | Nancy Bilyeau, Bruce Holsinger | March 30, 2014 | THE DAILY BEAST
A wild, despairing yell, and the waters closed over these wholesale butchers.
Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks | Bracebridge HemyngThe booths were emptied of their cooks and butchers and silversmiths.
The Lion's Brood | Duffield OsborneThere are, no doubt, circumstances in which butchers and bakers do come uppermost.
An Old Man's Love | Anthony TrollopeMrs Baggett looks on it only as a question of butchers and bakers.
An Old Man's Love | Anthony Trollope"That I'll never be a party to the combination o' the butchers, to keep up the price o' meat," says he.
The Pickwick Papers | Charles Dickens
British Dictionary definitions for butcher
/ (ˈbʊtʃə) /
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
to slaughter or dress (animals) for meat
to kill indiscriminately or brutally
to make a mess of; botch; ruin
Origin of butcher
1Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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