to butt against
1
5.9
- phrasal verb
:
chocar contra
- The grasshopper butted against Gem's folded palm.
- butted its head against
- butting her head against the wall
Examples
-
Frankenstein didn't even glance at her as her shoulder and hip butted against his side.
Fiction book (1995) -
"What I seemed to be good at in those days was butting my head against walls.
Fiction book (1990) -
Blood managed to force the butt of the shotgun against the back of Banish's neck and then pin his elbows with his knees.
Fiction book (1995) -
Down near the take, two babies were butting their heads against the two-by-four framing of the compost bin.
Fiction book (1995) -
Ennis woke in the red dawn with his pants around his knees, a top-grade headache, and Jack butted against him; without saying anything about it, both knew how it would go for the rest of the summer, sheep be damned.
Fiction book (2000) -
The cow butted its head against the fence, trying to get to the grass on the other side.
-
As the deer butted against the tree, it startled the nearby hikers.
-
The car butted against the concrete barrier, causing a loud thud.
Synonyms
∞
1.0
To strike someone or something with force
553
2.4
To hit someone or something with force
75
2.3
Hit something by accident while moving
64
3.1
Crash into each other while moving
38
3.7
Hit something or someone while moving, causing a sudden strong crash
18
2.1
To hit someone or something by accident while moving
13
2.2
To hit each other and make a loud sound
11
4.6
To hit with the head or horns
3
2.7
Hit something by accident when you move and touch it
2
7.3
To hit something or someone very hard
1
9.0
To hit someone or something hard, often by accident
To move quickly and hit something hard
Antonyms
How Forceful
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'butt' as a verb meaning to border or be adjacent, combined with the preposition 'against' indicating contact, yields the sense of sharing a boundary. This spatial, contact-based composition follows normal English patterns and would be clear to a B1 learner who knows both constituent words.
Etymology
The verb butt against comes from animals like goats that butt things with their heads. When something hits a fence or a person this way, it butts against the object, so the phrase means 'to collide forcefully with an obstacle'.