butcher
noun · verb
Simple meaning
Someone who slaughters or dresses meat for market.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
buucherSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈbʊtʃɚ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A person who slaughters or dresses meat for market
A person who prepares and sells meat (and sometimes also slaughters the animals).
figurative
A brutal or indiscriminate killer.
A retailer of meat
A brutal indiscriminate murderer
verb
transitive
To slaughter (animals) and prepare (meat) for market.
Kill (animals) usually for food consumption
transitive
To kill brutally.
transitive
To ruin (something), often to the point of defamation.
transitive
To mess up hopelessly; to botch; to distort beyond recognition.
intransitive
To work as a butcher.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C1 · Advanced
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A person who slaughters or dresses meat for market
Used this way, butcher is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A large sharp knife for cutting or trimming meat.
A strong wrapping paper that resists penetration by blood or meat fluids.
A shop in which meat and poultry (and sometimes fish) are sold.
A thick wooden slab formed by bonding together thick laminated strips of unpainted hardwood.
A thick wooden slab formed by bonding together thick laminated strips of unpainted hardwood.
A vendor of pork and products made from pork.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: to slaughter (animals) and prepare (meat) for market
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.