butter
UK /ˈbʌtə/ · US /ˈbʌtɚ/ noun, verb, proper noun
Forms butters buttering buttered butta buttah
- noun A soft, fatty foodstuff made by churning the cream of milk (generally cow's milk).
- noun (cooking) 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”
- noun Any of various substances made from other (especially plant-based) oils or fats, used in moisturizers, cosmetics, etc.
- noun (obsolete, chemistry) Any specific soft substance. “butter of antimony; butter of arsenic”
- noun (slang, sometimes attributive) Something that is smooth, impressive, or appealing. (Compare smooth as butter.)
- noun (aviation, slang) A smooth plane landing. “That landing was total butter!”
- verb (transitive) To spread butter on. “Butter the toast.”
- verb (skiing, snowboarding) 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. Similar to applying butter to bread with the end of a knife.
- verb To spin on skis or a snowboard using only the tips or tails being in contact with the snow
- verb (slang, obsolete, transitive) To increase (stakes) at every throw of dice, or every game.
- noun Someone or something that butts.
- noun Someone or something that butts in; a busybody.
- proper noun A surname.
Etymology
From Middle English buter, butter, from Old English butere, from Proto-West Germanic *buterā, from Latin būtȳrum, from Ancient Greek βούτῡρον (boútūron, “cow cheese”), compound of βοῦς (boûs, “ox, cow”) and τῡρός (tūrós, “cheese”).
Cognate with Dutch boter and German Butter.
* From butter, a metonymic occupational surname for a dairyman or seller of butter.
* From Old French butor (“bittern”), a nickname for someone who resembled a bittern, perhaps because of his voice.
* Borrowed from Dutch and German Butter, possibly a short form of various compound names.
Webster’s 1913
- noun An oily, unctuous substance obtained from cream or milk by churning.
- noun Any substance resembling butter in degree of consistence, or other qualities, especially, in old chemistry, the chloridess, as butter of antimony, sesquichloride of antimony; also, certain concrete fat oils remaining nearly solid at ordinary temperatures, as butter of cacao, vegetable butter, shea butter. Butter and eggs (Bot.), a name given to several plants having flowers of two shades of yellow, as Narcissus incomparabilis, and in the United States to the toadflax (Linaria vulgaris).
- verb To cover or spread with butter.
- verb To increase, as stakes, at every throw or every game. [Cant]
Etymology [OE. botere, butter, AS. butere, fr. L. butyrum, Gr. Cow.]
Sources: Wiktionary · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “butter”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details