Library / English Dictionary

BUTCHER

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Someone who makes mistakes because of incompetence

Synonyms:

blunderer; botcher; bumbler; bungler; butcher; fuckup; fumbler; sad sack; stumbler

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("butcher" is a kind of...):

incompetent; incompetent person (someone who is not competent to take effective action)

Derivation:

butcherly (poorly done)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A person who slaughters or dresses meat for market

Synonyms:

butcher; slaughterer

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("butcher" is a kind of...):

skilled worker; skilled workman; trained worker (a worker who has acquired special skills)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "butcher"):

knacker (someone who buys up old horses for slaughter)

Derivation:

butcher (kill (animals) usually for food consumption)

Sense 3

Meaning:

A brutal indiscriminate murderer

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("butcher" is a kind of...):

liquidator; manslayer; murderer (a criminal who commits homicide (who performs the unlawful premeditated killing of another human being))

Sense 4

Meaning:

A retailer of meat

Synonyms:

butcher; meatman

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Hypernyms ("butcher" is a kind of...):

merchandiser; merchant (a businessperson engaged in retail trade)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "butcher"):

pork butcher (a vendor of pork and products made from pork)

Derivation:

butcher (kill (animals) usually for food consumption)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Kill (animals) usually for food consumption

Example:

They slaughtered their only goat to survive the winter

Synonyms:

butcher; slaughter

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "butcher" is one way to...):

kill (cause to die; put to death, usually intentionally or knowingly)

"Butcher" entails doing...:

cut (separate with or as if with an instrument)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "butcher"):

chine (cut through the backbone of an animal)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody

Sentence example:

They want to butcher the prisoners

Derivation:

butcher (a person who slaughters or dresses meat for market)

butcher (a retailer of meat)

butchery (the savage and excessive killing of many people)

butchery (the business of a butcher)

butchery (a building where animals are butchered)

Credits

 Context examples: 

Her father was a grazier, her grandfather had been a butcher, but that was all nothing.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

This to a butcher's boy, a maid, and one or two loafers who had collected.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Oh! 'tis a nice place! A butcher hard by in the village, and the parsonage-house within a stone's throw.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

And I remember that the sounds they made reminded me of the squealing of pigs under the knife of the butcher, and I was struck with horror at the vividness of the analogy.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Much could not be hoped from the traffic of even the busiest part of Highbury;—Mr. Perry walking hastily by, Mr. William Cox letting himself in at the office-door, Mr. Cole's carriage-horses returning from exercise, or a stray letter-boy on an obstinate mule, were the liveliest objects she could presume to expect; and when her eyes fell only on the butcher with his tray, a tidy old woman travelling homewards from shop with her full basket, two curs quarrelling over a dirty bone, and a string of dawdling children round the baker's little bow-window eyeing the gingerbread, she knew she had no reason to complain, and was amused enough; quite enough still to stand at the door.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

She said, her papa and mamma had promised that Grildrig should be hers; but now she found they meant to serve her as they did last year, when they pretended to give her a lamb, and yet, as soon as it was fat, sold it to a butcher.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

The milkman, baker, grocer, and butcher inquired how she did, poor Mrs. Hummel came to beg pardon for her thoughtlessness and to get a shroud for Minna, the neighbors sent all sorts of comforts and good wishes, and even those who knew her best were surprised to find how many friends shy little Beth had made.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

I'm sure last winter (it was a very severe one, if you recollect, and when it did not snow, it rained and blew), not a creature but the butcher and postman came to the house, from November till February; and I really got quite melancholy with sitting night after night alone; I had Leah in to read to me sometimes; but I don't think the poor girl liked the task much: she felt it confining.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Now Irvine was a man of impulse, a poet. He got off the train at the next station, bought a piece of meat at a butcher shop, and captured the vagrant on the outskirts of the town.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

As she spoke a light sprang into view at the further end of the passage, and I saw the lean figure of Colonel Lysander Stark rushing forward with a lantern in one hand and a weapon like a butcher’s cleaver in the other.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)