butter

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points
8
Words With Friends
10
Letters
6
Pronunciation
/ˈbʌtəɹ/
See all 9 pronunciations
/ˈbʌtəɹ/ · /ˈbʌtə/ · /ˈbʌtɚ/ · [ˈbʌɾɚ] · /ˈbatə/ · [ˈbaɾə] · /ˈbʌtəɾ/ · /ˈbʊtə/ · /ˈbʊhɐ/

Definition of butter

13 senses · 3 parts of speech · etymology included

noun

  1. (uncountable, usually)A soft, fatty foodstuff made by churning the cream of milk (generally cow's milk).
See all 13 definitions

noun

  1. (uncountable, usually)A soft, fatty foodstuff made by churning the cream of milk (generally cow's milk).
  2. (uncountable, usually)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”
    “soy butter”
    “chocolate butter”
  3. (uncountable, usually)Any of various substances made from other (especially plant-based) oils or fats, used in moisturizers, cosmetics, etc.
    “Butters such as cocoa, illippe, kokum, mango, murumuru, sal (shorea) and shea occur naturally and are obtained directly from the plant.”
  4. (obsolete, uncountable, usually)Any specific soft substance.
    “butter of antimony; butter of arsenic”
  5. (attributive, slang, sometimes, uncountable, usually)Something that is smooth, impressive, or appealing. (Compare smooth as butter.)
    “That “Confessions” into “Nice and Slow” transition [at the Super Bowl LVIII halftime show] was buttah !”
  6. (attributive, slang, sometimes, uncountable, usually)Something that is smooth, impressive, or appealing. (Compare smooth as butter.)
    “That landing was total butter!”
  7. Someone or something that butts.
    “[…] 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.”
  8. Someone or something that butts in; a busybody.

verb

  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. Similar to applying butter to bread with the end of a knife.
  3. 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.
  4. (obsolete, slang, transitive)To increase (stakes) at every throw of dice, or every game.

name

  1. A surname.

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

Etymology

PIE word *gʷṓws Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *gʷṓws Proto-Hellenic *gʷous Ancient Greek βοῦς (boûs) Proto-Indo-European *tewh₂-der. Proto-Hellenic *tūrós Ancient Greek τυρός (turós) Ancient Greek βούτῡρον (boútūron)bor. Latin būtȳrumbor. Proto-West Germanic *buterā…

See full etymology

PIE word *gʷṓws Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *gʷṓws Proto-Hellenic *gʷous Ancient Greek βοῦς (boûs) Proto-Indo-European *tewh₂-der. Proto-Hellenic *tūrós Ancient Greek τυρός (turós) Ancient Greek βούτῡρον (boútūron)bor. Latin būtȳrumbor. Proto-West Germanic *buterā Old English butere Middle English buter English butter 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.

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