to churn butter

2 6.8

To make butter by shaking cream until it becomes solid

phrasal verb

: batir mantequilla

Start churning butter and put on your church shoes, little sister... 'cause we're about to blast off!
make and churn butter

Examples

She decided to churn butter from the fresh cream she collected from the farm.
In the old-fashioned kitchen, we will churn butter using a manual churn.
Who would like to see Mary Todd churn butter?

Bad Teacher (2011)
She was churning butter.

Bridesmaids (2011)
Hannah spent two weeks at the rectory, helping there to make soap and churn butter, and then walking a dusty mile.

Fiction book (2000)
She said we could ice skate, jump in leaf piles, and go to a place where people dressed up like pilgrims, and you could watch them spin wool, churn butter, and make candles.

Fiction book (1999)
During the workshop, participants learned how to churn butter and make homemade cheese.

Synonyms

to churn

vsto churn butter

20 4.6

To shake or stir cream until it becomes butter

continues agitating cream until it separates into solid fat and liquid using a device

How Vigorous

to churn butter

2 6.8

to agitate

9 4.1

to stir

152 1.0

Surface Forms

churn butter infinitive

churned butter past

churned butter past participle

churning butter present participle

churns butter third person singular

Morphology

churn + butter

The meaning is directly and literally derived from combining 'churn' (to stir/ agitate cream) with 'butter' (the dairy product), describing the physical process of making butter. This is a straightforward verb + object action that follows common compositional patterns across languages, so a B1 learner who knows both words would readily understand it.

Etymology

Churn butter comes from a simple farm task: people used a wooden churn to shake cream until it turned into butter. So 'churn butter' means 'to make butter' by shaking or stirring cream.