butch
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /bʊt͡ʃ/
rhymes: -ʊtʃ
Forms: form: butches
form: butching
form: butched
form: butched
Etymology: Back-formation from butcher.
Senses: examples: text: Sax thouſand years are near hand fled, / Sin’ I was to the butching bred, / And mony a ſcheme in vain’s been laid, / To ſtap or ſcar me; / Till ane Hornbook’s ta’en up the trade, / And faith, he’ll waur me.
ref: 1787, Robert Burns, “Death and Doctor Hornbook. A True Story.”, in Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, Edinburgh: […] the Author, and sold by William Creech, page 59:
text: Butch, to practice the trade of a butcher, to kill.
ref: [1846, John Trotter Brockett, W[illiam] E[dward] Brockett, A Glossary of North Country Words, with Their Etymology, and Affinity to Other Languages; and Occasional Notices of Local Customs and Popular Superstitions, 3rd edition, volume I, Newcastle upon Tyne: Emerson Charnley, […]; and Simpkin, Marshall, & Co., London, page 75:
text: And sometimes he also displayed by the side of his brooms, some spare-ribs after the killing of a neighbour’s pig—but there was no one in Black Moss who was a regular purveyor of any sort of meat. Certain there were indeed who “butched a bit noo an’ then,” but they looked for their meat to a butcher who journeyed to them from afar twice a week in the winter, and three times in the season.
ref: 1864, [Arthur Robins], “Job Redcar’s Suspicion”, in Black Moss. A Tale by a Tarn., volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], page 78:
text: BUTCH, v. to kill animals for food. as a butcher does. / Coll. Use. 1875. He use’t to be a farmer, but he butches neaw.
ref: 1875, John H[oward] Nodal, George Milner, A Glossary of the Lancashire Dialect, Manchester: ([…] [F]or the Literary Club by) Alexander Ireland & Co., […]. London: Trübner & Co., […], page 63:
text: From out his red and sawdust shop / This butcher, born to chepe and chop, / Surveys without a trace of grief / Perambulating tombs of beef. / […] / It’s probable we never shall / Convince him that an animal / Is not mere layers of lean and fat; / He may have butched too much for that.
ref: 1927, Walter de la Mare, “Meat”, in Stuff and Nonsense and So On, New York, N.Y.: Henry Holt and Company, page 16:
text: A butcher who butched in Des Moines, / As his customers passed him des coines, / Said: “What will you take / In the way of a steak? / Here’s a very nice piece off des loines.”
ref: 1905 November 4, Allison Yewell, “Geographical Nonsense”, in The Saturday Evening Post, volume 178, number 19, Philadelphia, Pa., page 19:
text: I expect to retire after that fashion—by changing work. The most serious weakness in our present social system is that everyone has to stick at the same thing all the time. It would be much more exciting if the butcher, having butched until his spirit is a bit weary, might become a Senator.
ref: 1924 October, Bruce Barton, “The Way I Want to Die”, in The Reader’s Digest, volume 3, number 30, page 359, column 1:
text: I never wanted to be a politician. In my home universe, I was a butcher. Meat was my life. I butched.
ref: 2022, Ira Nayman, The Ugly Truth (Transdimensional Authority), Dartford: Elsewhen Press, →ISBN:
glosses: To work as a butcher.
examples: text: Take thy huge offal and white liver hence, / Or in a twinkling of this true-blue steel / I shall be butching thee from nape to rump.
ref: 1834, Henry Taylor, Philip van Artvelde; a Dramatic Romance. […], 2nd edition, part II, London: Edward Moxon, […], pages 70–71:
text: “Couldn’t Ali butch the cow, please?” said Bill, whose ears were ever open when the question of food was raised.
ref: 1868, Anne Bowman, The Young Nile-Voyagers, London: George Routledge and Sons, […]. New York: […] , page 297:
text: I can vouch that it is in regular use in Clitheroe and the neighbouring district, where such expressions as “I butched three sheep yesterday,” or “He used to be a farmer, but has now gone into the butching business,” are very frequently heard.
ref: 1918 July, Wm. Self Weeks, ““Butching””, in Notes and Queries: A Medium of Intercommunication for Literary Men, General Readers, etc., volume IV, number 82, page 199, column 1:
text: However, the idea of horse meat for animal food is thoroughly established, and this industry has grown up in California because there seem to be more dogs and cats per capita than elsewhere; because horse meat sold in special pet food shops always has been economical, costing less than half as much as butcher’s meat. Even before the meat was freely sold in fresh form, it was butched regularly for dog food canners.
ref: 1943 August 15, “All About Horse Meat”, in Sales Management, volume 52, number 17, page 2, column 2:
text: Growing every pig takes between 8 and 12 months, and once they are ready to be butched, he sells them for 1500 to 2000 pesos (150-200 USD).
ref: 2004, Gregorio Hernandez Zamora, Identity and Literacy Development: Life Histories of Marginal Adults in Mexico City, University of California, Berkeley, page 233:
text: She turned to the butcher and said, “butcher butcher butch the cow[…]”
ref: 2013, Queen Zakia Shabazz, The Old Lady and . . . . ., Trafford Publishing, published 2016, →ISBN:
glosses: To slaughter (animals) and prepare (meat) for market.