butter

See also: Butter

English

A stick of butter (food made from cream) with a butter knife.

Pronunciation

  • enPR: bŭtʹ-ər, IPA(key): /ˈbʌ.təɹ/
  • (Northern England, Midlands) IPA(key): /ˈbʊ.tə/
    • Rhymes: -ʊtə(r)
  • Hyphenation: but‧ter

Etymology 1

From Middle English, from Old English butere (“butter”), from Proto-Germanic *buterǭ (“butter”) (compare West Frisian bûter, Dutch boter, German Butter), from Latin būtȳrum, from Ancient Greek βούτῡρον (boútūron, “cow cheese”), compound of βοῦς (boûs, “ox, cow”) and τῡρός (tūrós, “cheese”), from Scythian.

Compare Avestan 𐬌𐬭𐬌𐬏𐬙‎ (tūiri, “curdled milk, whey”)), from Proto-Indo-European *tuHrós (compare Middle Indic [script needed] (tūra, “cheese”), Russian творо́г (tvoróg, “curds, soft cheese”), Old English þweran (“to churn”), geþweor (“curds”)).

Noun

butter (usually uncountable, plural butters)

  1. (uncountable) A soft, fatty foodstuff made by churning the cream of milk (generally cow's milk).
  2. (countable, obsolete, chemistry) Any specific soft substance.
    butter of antimony; butter of arsenic
  3. (uncountable) Any of various foodstuffs made from other foods or oils, similar in consistency to, eaten like or intended as a substitute for butter (preceded by the name of the food used to make it).
    peanut butter
Derived terms
Translations
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.

Verb

butter (third-person singular simple present butters, present participle buttering, simple past and past participle buttered)

  1. (transitive) To spread butter on.
    Butter the toast.
  2. to move one's weight backwards or forwards onto the tips or tails of one's skis or snowboard so only the tip or tail is in contact with the snow.
  3. (slang, obsolete, transitive) To increase (stakes) at every throw of dice, or every game.
    (Can we find and add a quotation of Johnson to this entry?)
Derived terms
Translations
See also

Etymology 2

butt +‎ -er

Noun

butter (plural butters)

  1. Someone who butts, or who butts in.
    • 2005, David E. Fastovsky, David B. Weishampel, The Evolution and Extinction of the Dinosaurs (page 156)
      […] these animals lacked self-correcting mechanisms of the kind seen in modern head-butters such as goats and big-horn sheep that would have kept the tremendous forces aligned with the rest of the skeleton.

French

Etymology

From butte.

Verb

butter

  1. to heap
    butter les pommes de terre.
    to heap the potatoes [onto something].

Conjugation

Further reading

Swedish

Adjective

butter (comparative buttrare, superlative buttrast)

  1. grumpy

Declension

Inflection of butter
Indefinite Positive Comparative Superlative2
Common singular butter buttrare buttrast
Neuter singular buttert buttrare buttrast
Plural buttra buttrare buttrast
Definite Positive Comparative Superlative
Masculine singular1 buttre buttrare buttraste
All buttra buttrare buttraste
1) Only used, optionally, to refer to things whose natural gender is masculine.
2) The indefinite superlative forms are only used in the predicative.

West Flemish

Noun

butter ?

  1. Alternative form of beuter
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