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Glite Dictionary
🥩 A meat seller 💥 To ruin badly 🗡️ A ruthless killer 🔪 To cut up animals 🤦 An incompetent person
to butcher

to butcher

22 1.8
To kill animals for meat
  • verb
  • /ˈbʊtʃər/
translation icon : sacrificar
  • Though in a few hours this baby goat too would be butchered, prepared for the Christmas table.

And she said when I read Omnivore's Dilemma, I had to learn how to butcher a pig and I did.

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Examples

  • Using what appeared to be stone knives and scrapers, the group began to butcher the carcass.

    Fiction book (2002)

  • "What are we going to use to butcher the cow?" I asked him.

    Fiction book (1991)

  • You had to prepare and butcher sheep and give things away.

    Academic text (2004)

  • Grandmother decided to butcher it before the heat ruined the meat.

    Fiction book (2001)

  • So a couple days ago, Mariah and I went and butchered a lamb.

  • The old man butchered the doe, Smathers watching how he relished the wielding of the knife.

    Fiction book (2002)

  • Els skinned and butchered it with great skill, using her newly made stone knives and scrapers.

    Fiction book (2002)

  • The chef decided to butcher the lamb himself for the special dinner.

  • He learned how to butcher the deer he hunted, turning the meat into delicious meals.

  • After hunting the moose, they quickly began to butcher it in order to preserve the meat.

Synonyms

to slaughter
vsto butcher
60 3.9

To kill animals for food in large numbers

kills animals for food without implying large scale or formal control

Antonyms

to spare
77 3.5

Decide not to hurt someone even though you could

Compounds

butcher shop
18 1.3

A shop that sells fresh meat and poultry, sometimes fish

butcher knife
13 3.2

A large sharp knife used for cutting meat

butcher block
  • US
3 4.3

A thick wooden board used for cutting and preparing food

butcher boy
1 7.8

A young person who works in a meat shop and helps cut and wrap meat

butcher paper
  • US
1 3.3

A strong paper used for wrapping meat to stop blood or juices leaking

butcher board
  • US
6.7

Thick board made by joining strips of strong wood for use as a cutting surface

pork butcher
3.1

A person who cuts and sells pork like bacon and sausages

How Violent

to slaughter
60 3.9
to dispatch
  • Offensive
13 7.7
to butcher
22 1.8
to kill
  • NSFW
∞ 1.0

Surface Forms

butcher infinitive
butchered past
butchered past participle
butchering present participle
butchers third person singular

Etymology

Butcher as a verb comes from the same origin and first meant 'to kill animals for meat', so to butcher an animal is to kill and cut it for food. This is the direct action sense behind the noun.