Butcher

How to spell butcher

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce butcher

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does butcher mean?

1. nounA person whose trade is preparing and selling meat.
2. verbTo slaughter an animal for meat, or to ruin something through clumsy handling.

Butcher in a sentence

• noun

  The local butcher trimmed the lamb chops while we waited.

• verb

  The new editor managed to butcher a perfectly good article.

• noun

  She asked the butcher to recommend a cut for slow roasting.

• verb

  He tried to butcher the joint himself rather than buy it ready cut.

Where does butcher come from?

Language of origin: French

The word arrived in English in the 1200s from the Old French bouchier (also spelled bochier), which named someone who slaughtered animals and sold their meat. That occupational term grew out of the noun boc, meaning a he-goat or buck, so a bouchier was literally a dealer in goat flesh before the trade widened to cover all kinds of meat. The same boc root is a relative of the English word buck, the male deer or goat. By the late Middle Ages the sense had broadened from the market stall to a darker figurative use, describing anyone who kills brutally or who ruins a piece of work through clumsy handling. The tidy spelling hides the trap: the soft -cher ending sounds nothing like the way it is written, which is why many adults pause over whether it should be -cher or -ture.

How the word is built

• butch- (from Old French boc: he-goat)
• -er (agent suffix: one who does)