Definition

1. Noun:

   • A person whose trade is slaughtering animals and preparing and selling meat: A butcher is someone who works in a shop or market, cutting and selling meat to customers.
   • A person who kills brutally or indiscriminately: This figurative use describes someone who causes violent, excessive, or clumsy death and destruction.
   • Someone who performs a task very badly or incompetently: This informal, figurative sense refers to a person who ruins something through lack of skill.

2. Verb:

   • To slaughter and prepare (an animal) for meat: The core action of a butcher's trade.
   • To kill (people or animals) brutally or indiscriminately: To slaughter in a violent, often senseless, manner.
   • To ruin or spoil something through incompetence or carelessness: To perform a task (like acting, repairing, or creating) very poorly, damaging the original.

Examples of Usage

• Noun:

  • I bought some steaks from the local butcher.
  • The dictator was condemned as a butcher for the atrocities committed.
  • That hairdresser is a butcher; look what he did to my hair!

• Verb:

  • The farmer butchered the pig for the festival.
  • The soldiers were accused of butchering innocent civilians.
  • He completely butchered the guitar solo during the concert.

Advanced Usage

• "The butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker": A traditional phrase listing common tradespeople, often used to refer to ordinary people in a community.
• "Butcher's hook" (Cockney rhyming slang for "look"): "Take a butcher's at this!" means "Take a look at this!"
• "Butcher paper": A sturdy, often white or brown, paper used for wrapping meat, but also for crafts and as a disposable table covering.

Variants and Related Words

• Butchery (noun):
  • A slaughterhouse.
  • The trade of a butcher.
  • Savage, indiscriminate killing; carnage.
• Butcherly (adjective): Resembling or characteristic of a butcher; savage.
• Butcher block (noun): A heavy wooden tabletop or cutting board, originally used by butchers, now popular in kitchens.

Synonyms

• Noun (trader): Meatman, meat cutter.
• Noun (killer): Slaughterer, murderer, killer.
• Verb (slaughter): Slaughter, slaughter.
• Verb (ruin): Ruin, botch, bungle, massacre (informal), murder (informal).

Related Phrasal Verbs/Phrases

• "Butcher up": This is not a standard phrasal verb. The verb "butcher" is typically used transitively (e.g., butcher something).
• "To butcher one's way through something": To proceed in a violent, destructive, or very clumsy manner.
  • The inexperienced chef butchered his way through the recipe.

Related Idioms

• "Have/take a butcher's": (UK, informal) To have a look. (From Cockney rhyming slang: butcher's hook = look).
  • Come and have a butcher's at this old photo I found.
• "Like a butcher's dog": (UK, informal) Well-fed, especially on meat scraps. Often in the phrase "living like a butcher's dog."
• "Butcher's bill": The list of casualties (killed and wounded) in a battle or disaster.

Noun

1. someone who makes mistakes because of incompetence
2. a person who slaughters or dresses meat for market
3. a brutal indiscriminate murderer
4. a retailer of meat

Verb

1. kill (animals) usually for food consumption
   • They slaughtered their only goat to survive the winter