silent butler
- noun
- /ˈsaɪlənt ˈbʌtlər/
- Archaic
:
recogedor
- My grandmother keeps a vintage silent butler on the mantelpiece to collect ashes from the fireplace.
Examples
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The waiter discreetly used a silent butler to gather crumbs from the table after each course.
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The silent butler is perfect for keeping the dining table clean.
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He inherited his father's silver-plated silent butler, which was still in excellent condition.
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Many homes have a silent butler in the dining room.
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The elegant silent butler on the dining table made it easy to collect crumbs after dinner.
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He used the silent butler to neatly gather the ashes from the fireplace.
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After the party, she picked up the leftover snacks with a silent butler.
Synonyms
4
2.7
A small bowl-shaped tool used to lift and serve soft foods like ice cream
1
8.1
A small tool for sweeping crumbs from a table
Surface Forms
Morphology
silent + butler
The phrase combines a transparent adjective 'silent' with 'butler' which evokes a servant who tidies or attends to tasks, so learners can grasp a metaphorical sense of a quiet helper or device. However, the specific referent—a small handheld crumb/ash collector with a hinged lid—is not directly deducible from the parts and relies on a culture-specific metaphor, so the exact meaning is unlikely to be predictable without prior exposure.
Etymology
The noun silent butler comes from the image of a quiet butler, a servant who clears the table, and the word silent because the small box worked without making noise. So it came to mean 'a small handheld container used for collecting crumbs or ashes'.