Forms: 1–3 butere, 3 buttere, 4 boter(e, botter, butre, 4–5 buttur, 5 butture, buttir, buttyr, botyr, boture, bottre, 7 butyr, 4– butter. [OE. butere wk. fem. (in compounds buttor-); ad. L. butyrum, ad. Gr. βούτυρον. So OFris. butera, botera, MDu. bōter(e, botre, Du. boter, MLG. botter, late OHG. (10th or 11th c.) butera, MHG., mod.G. butter, all from Latin.
The Gr. is usually supposed to be f. βοῦς ox or cow + τυρός cheese, but is perhaps of Scythian or other barbarous origin.]
I. 1. The fatty substance obtained from cream by churning. It is chiefly used for spreading on bread (see BREAD AND BUTTER), and in cookery.
c. 1000. Sax. Leechd., I. 194. Wið ʓeswell, ʓenim þas ylcan wyrte myllefolium mid buteran ʓecnucude.
c. 1250. Gen. & Ex., 1014. Bred, kalues fleis, and flures bred, And buttere.
a. 1300. Havelok, 643. Bred an chese, butere and milk.
1377. Langl., P. Pl., B. V. 444. Bothe bred and ale · butter, melke, and chese.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 56. Buttyr or botyr [K. butture], buturum.
1562. J. Heywood, Prov. & Epigr. (1867), 71. Euery promise that thou therin dost vtter, Is as sure as it were sealed with butter.
1596. Shaks., 1 Hen. IV., II. iv. 569. A grosse fat man.—As fat as Butter.
1601. Holland, Pliny, II. 318. The fattest Butyr is made of Ewes milke.
1722. De Foe, Plague (1884), 105. I laid in … Salt-butter and Cheshire Cheese.
a. 1867. Buckle, Misc. Wks. (1872), I. 307. The Greeks were acquainted with butter, but never ate it.
b. To make butter and cheese of: ? to confound, bamboozle. (Cf. Gr. τυρεύειν.)
1642. Hales, Tract conc. Schism, 26. They made butter and cheese one of another.
c. (To look) as if butter would not melt in one’s mouth: said contemptuously of persons of excessively demure appearance.
1530. Palsgr., 620/1. He maketh as thoughe butter wolde nat melte in his mouthe.
1552. Latimer, Serm. Lord’s Prayer, v. II. 79. These fellows … can speak so finely, that a man would think butter should scant melt in their mouths.
1738. Swift, Pol. Conversat., I. 43 (D.). She looks as if Butter wou’dn’t melt in her Mouth; but I warrant, Cheese won’t choak her.
1850. Thackeray, Pendennis, lx. (1885), 595. She smiles and languishes, you’d think that butter would not melt in her mouth.
d. Melted butter: butter melted with water, flour, etc., used as a sauce. Clarified or run butter: butter melted and potted for culinary use.
1709. Addison, Tatler, No. 192, ¶ 1. A Plate of Butter which had not been melted to his Mind.
1807. Windham, Parl. Sp. (1812), III. 46. It was the sort of poverty of conception, reproached by some foreigner to English cookery, that we had but one sauce, and that that sauce was melted butter.
1833. Marryat, P. Simple, i. 7. I’ve thickened the butter.
1879. Marion C. Tyree, Housekeep. Old Virginia, 102. Dish and serve with drawn butter and parsley.
e. formerly used as an unguent; esp. in the preparation called May butter (see quots.).
1643. J. Steer, trans. Exp. Chyrurg., viii. 34. Let him apply the … Ointment of Sweet Butter thereto.
1718. Quincy, Dispens., III. xi. 476. Butyrum Majale, May Butter. This is made by melting fresh Butter that has been made up without any Salt, in the Sun; which is to be repeated until it grows of a whitish Colour. This is a very trifling Medicine, and of no use but as any simple Unguent, or plain Lard may be.
1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., s.v.
f. fig. Unctuous flattery. (Cf. BUTTER v.) colloq.
1823. Blackw. Mag., XIV. 309. You have been daubed over by the dirty butter of his applause.
1880. World, 13 Oct. A lavish interchange of compliments, the butter being laid on pretty thick.
† 2. ? A dish or confection made with butter. Obs.
c. 1600. Day, Begg. Bednall Gr., V. (1881), 114. The old woman my Mother … could have taught thee how to a made butters and flap-jacks.
3. transf. As a name for various substances resembling butter in appearance or consistence, as butter of almonds = ALMOND-BUTTER; butter of cacao, a white unctuous substance obtained from the seeds of the cacao: so butter of mace, shea butter (the substance that exudes from the African butter-tree), and similar products, called generically vegetable butters; butter of wax, a butyraceous oil, obtained from wax by distillation, rock butter, a mineral composed of alum combined with iron, which exudes as a soft butter-like paste from certain aluminiferous rocks [see quot. 1811 and cf. Ger. berg-butter].
c. 1440. Anc. Cookery, in Househ. Ord. (1790), 447. Botyr of Almondes. Take almonde mylke, and let hit boyle, and in the boylinge cast therto a lytel wyn or vynegur.
1672. Grew, Phil. Hist. Plants, § 51. No Oyl which remained liquid; but instead of that a Butyr, almost of the Consistence and Colour of the Oyl of Mace.
1752. Chambers, Cycl., s.v. Wax, By chemistry, wax yields a white thick oil, resembling butter; whence the chemists call it butter of wax.
1811. Pinkerton, Petral., I. 117. The kamennoie maslo, or rock butter, a fat yellowish substance of a penetrating smell, being a mixture of alum and fluid bitumen.
1836. Penny Cycl., VI. 68/2. The most important vegetable butters are produced by the Bassia butyracea … and certain palms, such as the Cocos butyracea and the Elæis Guineensis.
1860. Our English Home, 151. They [almonds] were boiled until the liquor became a delicious cream, from which was made the famous butter of almonds.
1866. Treas. Bot., s.v. Myristica, [The fixed oil of nutmegs] is extracted by pressure, and forms what is called butter of mace.
b. esp. in Chem., an old name of several anhydrous chlorides, as butter of antimony, arsenic, bismuth, tin, zinc.
1641. French, Distill., iii. (1651), 71. Oil or Butter of Antimony.
1802. Chevenix, in Phil. Trans., XCII. 764. The muriatic salts, formerly known by the strange name of butters of the metals.
1812. Sir H. Davy, Chem. Philos., 407. The only known compound, bismuth and chlorine … called butter of bismuth. Ibid., 377. Butter of zinc.
1876. Harley, Mat. Med., 260. Butter of Antimony is an energetic caustic.
II. Comb. and Attrib.
4. General comb.: a. attributive, as butter-cart, -cask, -churn, -crock, -dairy, -dealer, -dew, -dish, -firkin, † -kit, -merchant, † -monger, pot, -shop (also fig.), † -skep, -tub; b. objective gen., as butter-maker, -making: c. similative, as butter-colo(u)r, -colo(u)red, -like.
1828. Miss Mitford, Village (1863), 129. [They] would run to meet the *butter-cart as if it were a carriage and four.
1706. Lond. Gaz., No. 4383/1. An Act … for Amending of the Law, in relation to *Butter-Casks.
1847. Moir, in Rural Cycl., I. 592. The lime is pre-eminently suited for the manufacture of butter-casks.
1589. in H. Hall, Soc. in Elizabethan Age (1886), 201. A *butter-churn, 3s.
1865. Tylor, Early Hist. Man., ix. 240. In modern India, butter churns are worked with a cord.
1877. Littledale, in Academy, 24 Feb., 158. There are at least six shades of *butter-colour.
1784. J. Twamley, Dairying Exempl., 81. A near relation of mine, who kept a *Butter Dairy.
1780. British Topogr., II. 777. Mr. Van’s account of *butter-dew that fell in the provinces of Munster and Leinster.
1572. Wills & Inv. N. C. (1835), 349. xxxix *butter Dishes.
1861. Mrs. Beeton, Househ. Managem., 814. An ornamental butter-dish.
1640. Debate, in Rushw., Hist. Coll., III. (1692), I. 151. The … marking of *Butter-Firkins.
1567. Richmond Wills (1853), 209. Ij *butterkitts.
1802. Paley, Nat. Theol., xiii. A small nipple, yielding upon pressure a *butter-like substance.
1859. Geo. Eliot, A. Bede, 111. He actually dared not look at this little *buttermaker for the first minute or two.
1751. Lady M. W. Montague, Lett., III. 102. I expect immortality from the science of *butter-making.
1859. Geo. Eliot, A. Bede, 70. The linen butter-making apron, with its bib.
1813. Vancouver, Agric. Devon, 231. The *butter-merchants in London.
1720. Lond. Gaz., No. 5879/4. William Dixon … *Buttermonger.
a. 1693. Urquhart, Rabelais, III. xvii. 139. A great *Butter-pot full of fresh Cheese.
1865. E. Meteyard, J. Wedgwood, I. 125. The butter-pot was a coarse cylindrical vessel … formed of clay.
1773. Gentl. Mag., XLIII. 579. The poor man, who keeps a *butter-shop in Newgate-market.
1831. Blackw. Mag., 55. He has carefully collected, preserved, published, and transmitted to the butter-shops, all the hyperbolical bombast.
1572. Wills & Inv. N. C. (1835), 249. One *butter-skepp. Ibid. (1570), 318. *Buttertubbes, scuttles and other stuff.
1741. Compl. Fam.-Piece, I. i. 95. Take a Butter-tub.
5. Special comb.: † butter-ale = buttered ale (see ALE 4); butter and eggs, a popular name for several flowers that are of two shades of yellow, esp. Toadflax (Linaria vulgaris) and varieties of Narcissus; butter and tallow tree (see quot.); butter-back, a kind of wild duck (U.S.); butter-badger (dial.), an itinerant butter-factor; † butter-bag, a contemptuous epithet for a Dutchman (cf. BUTTER-BOX); butter-bake, Sc., a butter biscuit; butter-barrel = butter-cask in 4; also dial. a barrel-churn; butter-bird, a name for the Bobolink (U.S.); † butter-bitten, a., ? given to biting butter (cf. BITTEN ppl. a. 4); butter-boat, a vessel for serving melted butter in; used fig. of lavish adulation (colloq.); butter-cooler, a vessel for keeping butter cool when brought on the table; butter cross, a market-cross near which butter is sold; butter-cutter, the name of an insect (? corruption of bud-cutter; see BUD sb.1 5); butter-dock (see quot.); butter-factor, a tradesman who buys butter from the farmers to sell wholesale; butter-fish, the Spotted Gunnel, so called from its slimy skin; butter-flip, a local name of the Avocet; butter-jags, a dial. name for Lotus corniculatus, also for Medicago falcata; butter-knife, a blunt knife used for cutting butter at table; butter-lamp, a lamp fed with butter instead of oil; butter-leaves, a name for Atriplex hortensis and Rumex alpinus; butter-man, a man who makes or sells butter; also Naut. a schooner rigged in a particular way; † butter-mark = BUTTER-PRINT 1; butter-mo(u)ld (see quot.); butter-mouth attrib., a contemptuous epithet for a Dutchman = butter-bag; butter-pat, a small piece of butter rolled or shaped into some ornamental form for the table; butter-pear = BEURRÉ; butter-plate, a plate for holding butter; also, a name for Ranunculus flammula; † butter-quean = butter-whore; butter-rigged a. Naut. (see quot. 1885, and cf. butter-man); † butter-root = BUTTERWORT; butter-scotch (also dial. butterscot), a kind of toffee, chiefly composed of sugar and butter; butter-toast (more commonly buttered toast), toast spread with butter; butter-tree, name of Bassia butyracea and Bassia Parkii; butter-weed, a name for Erigeron canadensis and Senecio lobatus; butter-weight, formerly 18 or more ounces to the pound; hence, fig. for ‘good measure’ (obs.); † butter-whore, a scolding butter-woman; † butter-wife, butter-woman, a woman who makes or sells butter; butter-worker, a contrivance for pressing the butter-milk out of butter. See also BUTTER-BOX, -BUR, -CUP, -FLY, -WORT, etc.
1666. Pepys, Diary, 17 March. Home, having a great cold: so to bed, drinking *butter-ale.
1776. Withering, Bot. Arrangem. (1796), III. 552. Toadflax, Snap dragon, *Butter and Eggs.
1880. Jefferies, Gt. Estate, 83. In shady woodlands the toadflax or butter-and-eggs is often pale,—a sulphur colour.
1830. Lindley, Nat. Syst. Bot., 46. The *Butter and Tallow-tree of Sierra Leone, which owes its name (Pentadesma butyracea) to the yellow greasy juice its fruit yields when cut.
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., I. 213. Little black and white duck, called *Butter Back (Anas minor picta).
1857. Fraser’s Mag., LVI. 355. His father was … a *butter-badger.
c. 1645. Howell, Lett., II. xi. The *butterbag Hollander.
1828. Blackw. Mag., XXIV. 910. He … thumped *butter-bakes with his elbows to some purpose.
1862. Barnes, Rhymes Dorset Dial., I. 6. The *butter-barrel An’ cheese wring.
1883. Standard, 26 Dec., 2/4. They [bobolinks] … grow so fat that they receive the name of *‘butter birds.’
a. 1577. Gascoigne, Voy. Hollande (1831), 221. The Dutche with *butterbitten iawes.
1787. Gentl. Mag., Sept., 821/2. His mustard-glass and *butter-boat were overturned.
1807. Byron, To Miss Pigot, 5 July. Upset a butter-boat in the lap of a lady.
1865. Sat. Rev., 7 Jan., 16/2. That kind of praise which feels like the butter-boat down one’s back.
1866. J. H. Skinner, After Storm, I. 181. He praised some things and gave advice about others, using the butter-boat less freely than is customary at volunteer inspections.
1884. Health Exhib. Catal., 112/1. Ice Jugs and *Butter Coolers.
1883. Flor. Marryat, Moment Madness, &c. III. 170. Their old-world institutions and buildings—their *butter crosses and market steps.
1719. London & Wise, Compl. Gard., 178. The end of their new Shoots intirely cut off by a little black round Insect, called *Buttercutter.
1863. Prior, Plant-n., 36. *Butter-dock, from its leaves being used for lapping butter, whence the Scotch name of it, Smair-dock, Rumex obtusifolius, L.
1813. Vancouver, Agric. Devon, 230. The *butter-factors at Honiton.
1674. Ray, (Sea) Fishes, Coll., 104, 56. *Butter-Fish.
1740. R. Brookes, Art Angling, II. xviii. 123. The Butter-Fish or Gunnel … sometimes attains the Length of six Inches … is taken frequently on the Cornish Coast.
1883. Fisheries Exhib. Catal. (ed. 4), 179. The Butter-fish is an excellent and delicate morsel.
1802. G. Montagu, Ornith. Dict. (1833), 66. *Butterflip, a name for the Avoset.
1691. Ray, N. C. Wds., Coll. 12. *Butter-jags, the Flowers of the Trifolium siliqua cornuta.
1776. Withering, Bot. Arrangem. (1796), VI. 659. Yellow Medick, Butterjags.
1884. Gilmour, Mongols, 91. The altar on which a *butter-lamp was then burning.
1789. Marshall, Glocester (E.D.S.), *Butter-leaves, the leaves of the Atriplex hortensis, or garden orach; which dairywomen in general sow in their gardens, annually, [for packing butter in].
1802. Edin. Rev., I. 51. *Butter-men … are scarcely ever attacked by the plague.
1885. Daily Tel., 26 Nov. (on Rigs), He believed that this name [butter-man] was given in consequence of numbers of this kind of craft trading to Holland for butter.
1483. Cath. Angl., 50. *Buttir marke.
1861. Mrs. Beeton, Househ. Managem., 814. *Butter-moulds, or wooden stamps for moulding fresh butter.
1547. Boorde, Introd. Knowl., 147. I am a Flemyng, what for all that?… *‘Buttermouth Flemyng,’ men doth me call.
1616. Surfl. & Markh., Countr. Farm, 417. Garden tender or delicate pear such as *Butter peare.
1719. London & Wise, Compl. Gard., 52. The Burree…. It’s call’d the Butter Pear, because of its smooth, delicious, melting soft Pulp.
1753. H. Walpole, Corr. (1837), I. 203. The *butter-plate is not exactly what you ordered, but I flatter myself you will like it as well.
1853. G. Johnston, Nat. Hist. E. Bord., I. 26. Ranunculus Flammula, the Butter-Plate, a name expressive of the comparative flatness of the corolla.
1650. H. More, in Enthus. Tri. (1656), 106. You … scold more bitterly than any *Butter-quean.
1881. W. C. Russell, Ocean Free-Lance, III. iv. 121. Did you want to box me up in the little wooden cabin of a butter-rigged schooner?
1885. Daily Tel., 26 Nov. (on Rigs), A butter-rigged schooner ’s a vessel that sets her top-gallant sail flying. The yard comes down on the top-sail yard, and the sails is furled together.
1597. Gerard, Herbal, cclxiii. § 4. 645. In Yorkshire … it is called Butterwoorts, *Butter roote, and white roote.
1855. Whitby Gloss., *Butterscot, treacle ball, with an amalgamation of butter in it.
1865. Miss Braddon, Sir Jasper, XXVI. 260. The vendors of toothsome *butterscotch were blithe and busy.
1826. Polwhele, Trad. & Recoll., II. 381. I found time to … treat him with *butter-toast for his supper, and butter-toast for his breakfast.
1830. Lindley, Nat. Syst. Bot., 181. The *Butter Tree of Mungo Park was also a species of Bassia.
1866. Treas. Bot., Bassia butyracea, the Indian Butter tree.
1878. H. Stanley, Dark Cont., II. xiii. 365. The Bassia Parkii, or Shea butter-tree … exudes a yellowish-white sticky matter.
1886. in N. & Q., Ser. vi. I. 30 Jan., 98/2. The Shea tree or butter tree of Africa, whose seeds produce the Galam butter mentioned by Mungo Park.
1733. Swift, On Poetry, 540. Yet why should we be lac’d so strait? I’ll give my monarch *butter-weight.
1807. Vancouver, Agric. Devon (1813), 231. This salting in some measure accounts for the enlarged customary butter-weight in this country.
1593. Nashe, Four Lett. Confut., 49. Thou arrant *butterwhore, thou cotqueane, & scrattop of scoldes.
1764. T. Bridges, Homer Travest. (1797), I. 249. You … scolded like a butter-whore.
1542. Brinklow, Complaynt, vi. (1874), 19. Not so moch as the poore *butter-wife but she is spoyled.
1601. Shaks., All’s Well, IV. i. 245, Tongue, I must put you into a *Butter-womans mouth … if you prattle mee into these perilles.
1883. Punch, 24 Feb., 87/1. Funny to see for the first time the five Royal Commissioners in their butterwoman’s cloaks.
