butter n.1
1. semen; thus buttery, semen-filled.
 | implied in make butter with one’s tail | |
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Cimmerian Matron in Mish Restoration Prose Fiction (1970) 155: [She was] besmear’d with her own blood, while the more guilty wife was anointed with the Butter of Joy. | |
| Merry Maid of Islington 17: Tell me, good Housewives, is not the pleasure more, when Butter quickly comes, Than to be three long hours a jogging of your Bums. | |
| London Terraefilius I 23: The Cat that loves Butter herself, will never abandon her Kitten for taking a lick at the Cream-Pot. | |
| Harris’s List of Covent-Garden Ladies 53: [She] is said to have not only a delicate hand at stroking, but great skill in the use of the churn, soon making love’s butter from nature’s cream. | |
| Swell’s Night Guide 90: Dutch Frow Christine, who said, – He cannot stand it, and I cannot stand it [...] he shall churn all night, but the butter will not come, and he bends de churn-staff. | |
| My Secret Life (1966) XI 2294: Backwards she drew her bum, my prick slipped out of her buttery cunt. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | (con. c.1914) in Ozark Folksongs and Folklore (1992) II 771: Set on your butt, get a hold of your nubbin, / If you don’t get butter, just keep on a-rubbing. | |
| ‘Banana in Your Fruit Basket’ 🎵 Now I got the dasher, my baby got the churn, / We gonna churn, churn, churn till the butter come. | |
| in Ozark Folksongs and Folklore (1992) I 133: Learned from a Negro in central Arkansas, about 1910. [...] ‘Supper got done an’ she give me some, / Wiggled her ass till the butter come, um-hum. / Went upstairs to get a little jigger, um-hum’. | |
| in Ozark Folksongs and Folklore (1992) I 407: All them gals is after my nubbin, / Butter don’t come, they keep on a-rubbin’. | |
| (con. 1930s) Lawd Today 152: You talk like I don’t know how to whip a woman’s jelly [... I can whip it till the butter comes. | |
| (con. 1940s) Tattoo (1977) 132: Stick a stirrer up her big butt and she could make butter. | |
| ‘To the Beat, Y’all’ 🎵 I say, you bring the butter and I’ll bring the salt / And if you don’t freak then it ain’t my fault. | |
![[WI]](/static/img/flags/wi.png "West Indies") | ‘Cocky Did a Hurt Me’ 🎵 Me discharge best butter. |
2. excrement.
| Mercurius Democritus 9-16 Feb. 345: The trembling Dutch dejected stand, / their Skippers still do mutter, / The High and Mighties of Holland, / their Breeches now make Butter. | |
| Maronides (1678) VI 75: I in Kitchin rul’d the Roast, / And for a Hash but over-sauc’d, / Have churn’d the Cook till from his Bum / I made the yellow Butter come. |
3. vaginal secretions.
| ‘I Wish My Dear Fanny’ in Rum Ti Tum! in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) III 180: O wert thou transmuted into a milk-churn, / I’d then be your staff or your beam, / My milk I would yield lovely maid in my turn, / And give for your butter my cream. | |
| More Forbidden Fruit 75: I placed Patty’s well-buttered affair over him for a ride. |
4. flattery, unctuousness; thus butter-tongued, persuasive.
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | Blackwood’s Mag. XIV 309: You have been daubed over by the dirty butter of his applause [F&H]. | |
| Handley Cross (1854) 394: The chairman, looking rather foolish at his butter not being swallowed. | |
| Three Clerks (1869) 7: The quantity of butter which he poured over Mr. Hardine’s head and shoulders with the view of alleviating the misery which such a communication would be sure to inflict, was very great. | |
| , | | Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. |
| Sportsman (London) 24 July 2/1: Notes on News [...] The ‘working man’ is a wonderful animal. He will take any amount of ‘butter’ without becoming sick. | |
| Sl. Dict. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Bulletin (Sydney) 5 Feb. 4/4: I’ve watched him many a year, and can / Most honestly his praises utter. / There never was a living man / Who better could lay on the ‘butter.’. | |
| Sporting Times 6 Sept. 1/1: The greedy way in which [the Scots] swallow the Gladstonian butter or ‘bosh’ is nationally characteristic. | |
| Notes from ‘News’ 74: ‘Your novel has great merit, but’ – mere butter. | |
| Pitcher in Paradise 73: His lordship swallowed the butter without comment. | |
| Eve. Star (Wash., DC) 27 Sept. 42/2: I hated the butter tongued feller that got Phil into it. | |
| Madcap of the School 28: ‘She can swallow any amount of butter [...] She evidently likes it laid on thick’. | |
| Dict. Amer. Sl. | |
| Shilling for Candles 130: Jammy Hopkins rang up to explain away his ‘middle’ in the Clarion. [...] [I]t was Williams at the other end of the telephone. Williams was not in the mood for butter. | |
| , | | DAS. |
5. (US) nitroglycerine.
| Hairy Ape Act VII: Dat’s what I’m after – to blow up de steel [...] Gimme de stuff, de old butter – and watch me do de rest! | |
| , | | DAS. |
6. (US black) a woman, esp. when sexually active.
| Runnin’ Down Some Lines 142: The term butter [...] refers to both an attractive woman and to a full derriere. |
7. (US black) an attractive man.
| Runnin’ Down Some Lines 198: There were also terms related to men and sex: [...] butter, little pretty, sweet (attractive male). |
8. (orig. US black/teen, also butta, buttah) a general term of approval, the best, the most fashionable, attractive etc; thus like butter, well-executed or performed smoothly or well [underlined by butter adj.2 ].
| Sl. and Sociability 92: Like buttah, meaning ‘smooth, soft, beautiful’ or ‘executed or performed smoothly or well’, entered college slang in 1992 from the Coffee Talk sketch. | |
| College Sl. Research Project (Cal. State Poly. Uni., Pomona) 🌐 Butter [...] da bomb; the best. | |
| Teen Lingo: The Source for Youth Ministry 🌐 butta n. the good stuff. ‘Now that’s the butta!’. |
9. (W.I.) a feat which is easily performed.
| Official Dancehall Dict. 7: Butter any feat requiring no effort; easily done: u. a butter dat. |
10. (N.Z. prison) marijuana.
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 35/1: butter n. marijuana. |
In compounds
the vagina.
| Sl. and Its Analogues. | |
| Vocabula Amatoria (1966) 32: bateau, m. The female pudendum; ‘the butter-boat’. |
1. the vagina.
| Hudibras Redivivus II:4 18: The Fro believing from my Joaks, / I fancy’d not her Butter-Box. |
2. see also under SE compounds below.
the penis.
| Ely’s Hawk & Buzzard (NY) Sept. 6 n.p.: Please send your Hawk to inform the young man that took the butter knife from me to return it to me or I will expose his name. | |
| Snowdrops from a Curate’s Garden 18: He [...] plunged his straining and kicking butter-knife within the hole thus formed. The foaming guts closed round his maddened member. |
In phrases
to masturbate.
| in Limerick (1953) 329: There was a cute quirp from Calcutta / Who was fond of churning love-butta. |
in difficulties.
| Rap Sheet 72: If the cinder dicks find you on the train, we will all be in the butter. |
of a woman, to have sexual intercourse.
| Gesta Grayorum in Progresses and Processions of Queen Elizabeth (1823) III 335: If lusty Doll, mayde of the dary / Chance to be blew-nipte by the Fayry, / For making butter with her tayle; / I’le give her that did never fayle. | |
| Mercurius Democritus No. 82 644: Here’s Meg, Moll, Kate, Maids of the Dayrie, / But last night blew-nipt by a Fayrie, / For making Butter with their tailes. | |
| An antidote against melancholy 69: [L]usty Sis, Mayd of the Dairy, / Chance to be Blew Nipt by the Farie, / For making butter with her Tail, / Ile give her that shall never fail. |
SE in slang uses
In compounds
see separate entry.
(US) naive, spoilt, foolish.
| A Garden of Sand (1981) 37: You come back here, you butter-assed little bastard. |
a woman with large breasts and buttocks.
| Runnin’ Down Some Lines 142: The expression butter baby refers to a girl who promises to be amply endowed – as one young man put it – ‘from her headlights to her hocks’. |
a Dutchman; also attrib.
| Familiar Letters (1737) II Dec. 90: For the latter strength, we may thank our Countryman Ward, and Danskey the Butterbag Hollander. |
an overweight or plump (young) person; also as adj.
| Decade 231: ‘Listen, Chris,’ asked Barnes of the butterball face, ‘what do you think we just got?’. | |
| Nottingham Eve. Post 15 Nov. 4/6: There are three main types of men — the fat man or butterball, the bone and muscle type, and the stringbean. | |
| ‘Tell Them Nothing’ in Tell Them Nothing (1956) 2: He’d beat that fat hide right off you, Butterball. | |
| , | | DAS. |
| Requiem for a Dream (1987) 21: Yawl just turn her on to some smack and her butter ball ass go right down the drain. | |
| It (1987) 87: I was a regular butterball. | |
| Makes Me Wanna Holler (1995) 24: A lot of guys got tagged with nicknames during jonin’ sessions: Roach, Tweety Bird, Itchy Booty, Butter Ball. | |
| Big Ask 79: I found myself facing a vivacious little butterball, her hair in coiled ringlets. | |
| Something Fishy (2006) 23: Behind her butterball exterior, Gillian was sharp as a tack. | |
| (con. 1954) Tomato Can Comeback [ebook] That dirty little butterball got what was coming to him. | |
| ‘The Last Job’ in ThugLit Aug. [ebook] [F]ighting through these butterball high school dropouts. | |
| Back to the Dirt 69: ‘Fuck you, butterball, probably ain’t seen your dick since you’s born’. |
buck teeth.
| in DARE. |
1. a Dutchman; the Dutch language.
| Shoemakers’ Holiday II iii: They may well be called butter-boxes, when they drink fat veale, and thicke beare too. | |
| Weakest goeth to the Wall line 462: In stead of parle buon francoys, learne to brawl out butterbox . | |
| Roaring Girle V i: Thou lookest like a strange creature, a fat butter-box, yet speakest English. | |
| Staple of News I ii: The butter-box, Buz, the emissary. | |
| Hollander I i: [If] The gentle noose had knit up him, and a hundred of his country men, our land would not be pestred so with butterboxes. | |
| ‘A March’ in Carpenter Verse in English from Tudor & Stuart Eng. (2003) 259: A Gallimaufry Hodge-Podge kind / Of Butterboxes came behind. | |
| Mercurius Democritus 8-16 Dec. 182: Vanfart having chain’d up the Thames with Holland Cheeses makes them beleeve the Narrow Seas are to be confin’d into the narrow compasse of a Butter-box. | |
| Mercurius Democritus 8-16 Dec. 188: The Butter-boxes have caused the English Colours to be set upon their own ships. | |
| in Broadside Ballads No. 60 ‘Dutch Damnified or the Butter-Boxes Bob’d’ [title]. | |
| Hogan-Moganides 3: When Butterbox did put on State; Confusion turn’d Confederate. | |
| Auction 3: What, I warrant you, that’s a Butter-box with his 1 Pound, 1 Skillin. | |
| Step to Bath 11: [She] then departed, and left poor Butter-Box, to be ridicul’d by the whole Society of Thimberkins. | |
| New Canting Dict. | |
| , , , | | Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. |
| , , | | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: butter box, Dutchman, from the great quantity of butter eaten by the people of that country. |
| Lex. Balatronicum. | |
| Sailor’s Word-Bk (1991) 148: Butter-Box. A cant term for a Dutchman. | |
| Old Book Collector’s Misc. 32: a butter-box noul. — i.e. a Dutchman’s head. | |
| Wash Tubbs [comic strip] Well, me handsome butterboxes. | |
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). | |
| Maledicta VII 25: Buttermouth and butterbox are old slurs on the Dutch. |
2. a fop [play on the ‘softness’ of butter].
| London Spy IX 209: They [...] became their Post much better in their Old Coats, than the Butter-boxes did in all their finery. |
3. a German.
| Moby Dick (1907) 308: ‘Don’t be afraid, my butter-boxes,’ cried Stubb. |
4. see also under sl. compounds above.
of a man, effeminate.
| Barry McKenzie [comic strip] in Complete Barry McKenzie (1988) 61: You Aussies are so deliciously butterbox. |
a novice, esp. a young police officer or a newly qualified taxi-driver.
| Signs of Crime 176: Butter boy Newly licensed cab driver, or very young policeman. |
(Aus./US) a fool; thus butter-brained, stupid.
| Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 20 Mar. 4/1: Could stupidity go father than this in the shape of butter-brained, beautiful bungling? | |
| Going After Cacciato (1980) 46: Twerp, creepo, butterbrain. It wasn’t right. He was a straightforward, honest [...] guy. | |
| (Aus.) ‘Feathered Frolics’ 🌐 Listen, butterbrain, he’s had more good ideas than you’ve had munchies. | |
| ‘StarPearl’s Journey part 7’ 🌐 ‘Do you know where you going, FireEye?’ Asked Loki. ‘Yes, you butterbrain! I only took this route a million times coming to Samptra!’. |
(US black) a large posterior.
| (con. 1930s–50s) Night People 117: Butter butt. Fat bottom. |
1. a pet name for a child.
| World Well Lost vii: Hilda was still in the school-room, and seldom appeared, even at afternoon tea; which in general is licensed to include buttercups [F&H]. |
2. (US) a young boy.
| Professor How Could You! 230: It was certainly soft sugar for that buttercup. |
3. an effeminate male homosexual.
| ‘Lang. of Homosexuality’ Appendix VII in Henry Sex Variants. | |
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). | |
| (ref. to 1930s) Guild Dict. Homosexual Terms 6: buttercup (n.): Effeminate male homosexual. (Used in the 1930’s by heterosexuals; now fallen into disuse.). | |
| (ref. to 1930s) Queens’ Vernacular 72: stereotype effeminate homosexual [...] buttercup (hetero sl, ’30s). |
4. (US) a pretty young woman.
| Burlesque 92: Take your little buttercup away from that door. | |
| , | | DAS. |
(mainly juv.) one who lets things slip through their fingers; thus butterfinger v., to let something slip through one’s fingers; thus butter-fingered adj.
| Gilbert Gurney 146: Cries of ‘Ah, clumsy’ – ‘halloo, butter fingers,’ were heard. | |
| Pen and Pencil Pictures 141: He was a slovenly player, and went among the cricket-lovers by the sobriquet of Butter-fingers. | |
| Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn) 108: BUTTER-FINGERED, apt to let things fall. | |
| Evan Harrington I 248: The ball, indeed, was dropping straight into the hands of [...] the long-hit-off, he who never was known to miss a catch – butter-fingered beast! – he let the ball slip through his fingers. | |
| Sl. Dict. [as cit. 1860]. | |
| Krank: His Lang. and What It Means 24: The buttercups I gather While the batsman waits and lingers, And now you know the reason Why they call me ‘butter-fingers’. | |
| Round London 86: There are howls of ‘Bloomin’ butter-fingers!’ followed by derisive laughter. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 17 Nov. 12/3: Even a butter-fingers could have picked the dreamer’s pocket of a valuable sweep-ticket without breaking his trance. | |
| John Bull’s Other Island II ii: Oh, you’ve a dale to say for yourself, you butther-fingered omadhaun. | |
| Varmint 82: The Cleve House representatives were a lot of dubs, butterfingers and fumblers, anyhow! | |
| Lonely Plough (1931) 95: Slinging the dicebox [...] and adding ‘Butter-thumbs!’ when he missed it. | |
| ‘Terms Of Disparagement’ in DN IV:iii 218: butter-fingered, clumsy. | |
| Front Page Act III: You God damn butter fingers! | |
| Woodfill of the Regulars 245: It was hardly a job for butter-fingered rookies. | |
| King Cole 262: ‘She’s always dropping things, Governor,’ said Fred. ‘I call her Butterfingers’. | |
| Kingsblood Royal (2001) 231: So obliging in their butterfingered offers to take from her a burden of sorrow that neither of them could understand. | |
| Boy’s Book of Cricket 32: Well held – Billy Butterfingers! | |
| Sat. Night and Sun. Morning 168: Some beer trickled on to a woman’s coat [...] ‘Butterfingers’. | |
| There is a Happy Land (1964) 95: Hah, blinking butterfingers has dropped his plate! | |
| Gaily, Gaily 55: I knew chiefly the rakish fraternity of [...] addled porch climbers, wife beaters, door-mat thieves, [...] butterfingered safeblowers and shop-lifters. | |
| After Hours 35: The shooter ran around the table as Butterfingers hit the floor. | |
| ‘The Long Legs of the Law’ Only Fools and Horses [TV script] Oh dear, oh dear, butterfingers. | |
| Homeboy 207: Catchcha later, butterfingers. | |
| Guardian Editor 7 Jan. 13: In the dream Crystal’s patient [...] appears as his son, butterfingering a revolver and failing to prevent the hit. |
(drugs) marijuana.
| Drug Crisis in Spears (1986). | |
| et al. Recreational Drugs. | |
| ONDCP Street Terms 5: Butter flower — Marijuana. |
1. (US, also butter gills) a fool; thus butterheaded adj., foolish.
| Bulletin (Sydney) 21 May. 9/4: Some insane old butterhead once remarked that figures couldn't lie, but [...] this fellow never dreamt of the mighty power of the Sydney daily press. | |
| Stone Mad (1966) 189: D’ye hear me old butter gills! | |
| Paco’s Story (1987) 16: The senior class’s butter-headed peckerwood flashing around the locker room. | |
| Life without Consequences 139: ‘Butterhead,’ I call him when I sit down to play against him. He glares at me but he is a skinny runt and nothing to be afraid of. |
2. (US black) a black person who, for whatever reason, is considered an embarrassment to their race.
| Dvorak in Love 102: ‘Why you calling me butterhead?’ ‘Because you’re a nigger, butterhead.’. | |
| Goblins in the Castle 90: Better be afraid, butterhead boy! | |
| Juba to Jive 75: Butterhead n. (1940s) a ‘Negro’ who is considered an ‘embarrassment’ to his race. |
(US) a shop.
| Vocabulum 16: butter ken A shop or store. | |
| Sl. Dict. (1890) 10: Butterker. A store. Butter-Ken. Store or shop. |
(Aus.) a promiscuous girl or woman.
| Dict. Aus. Swearing & Sex Sayings 24: BUTTER LEGS — A female who has legs that spread easily. |
see separate entries.
(US) a Northern supporter of the Confederacy during the US Civil War; also attrib.
| diary Civil War Letters 141: The North Carolinaons [sic] and Georgians were regular buternuts [sic], gaunt, long haired and long leged [sic] chaps most of them dressed in Butternut clothing. | |
| Army Life of an Illinois Soldier (1996) 172: Whenever a butternut would appear among us they would greet him with a perfect storm of shouts. | |
| (ref. to US Civil War) Lay My Burden Down 96: They had all their menfolks in the Confederate army [...] I seen lots of men in butternut clothes. |
(US black teen) an attractive Puerto Rican/Latino woman; also attrib.
| Portable Promised Land (ms.) 151: We Words (My Favorite Things) [...] Redbone. Hi-Yella. French vanilla. Butter pecan. Chocolate deluxe. Caramel sundae. | |
| ‘P.I.M.P.’ 🎵 I got some butter pecan Puerto Ricans. |
a baby, a child, esp. when illegitimate.
| Chances I vi: A beavy of these Butter-prints. | |
| Spanish Curate II i: There are some poor Labourers [...] with helping one another, Produce some few pin’d Butter-prints, that scarce hold the Christening neither. | |
| Northern Lasse II i: A Butter-print? | |
| Chances I vi: [as cit. c.1617]. | |
| British Apollo II 46 32: Her Girl and her Boy, / For Patterns employ, / To make little Butter-Prints by [F&H]. | |
| Boarding-School 38: Backstitch has just now lock’d her up in a lower Room, where my little Butter-print was waiting for me. |
(US) money.
| Wilson Collection n.p.: Butter skin [...] slang name for money [DARE]. |
(US) buck teeth.
| Wily Beguiled 35: Give me but such an other word, and Ile be they tooth-drawer een of they butter tooth, thou toothlesse trot thou. | |
| Silent Woman IV v: Your two butter-teeth. | |
| Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Butter Teeth. Large broad fore teeth. | |
| , | | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd, 3rd edn). |
| Sheffield Gloss. 34: Butter-Teeth, large, broad front teeth. | |
| in DARE. |
see butterfingers
a good measure.
| ‘On Poetry’ Miscellanies V (1751) 264: Yet why should we be lac’d to straight? I’ll give my ------ Butter-weight . |
an ill-tempered woman who sells butter.
| Pierce Pennilesse n.p.: Why thou arrant butter whore, thou cotqueane and scrattop of scoldes. | |
| Ile of Guls IV i: O that I were a butter whore for an houre I might scold a little. | |
| ‘Excellent New Medley’ in Pepys Ballads (1987) I 456: The Cuckow sung hard by the doore, Gyll brawled like a butter whore, Cause her buck-headed Husband swore the Miller was a knaue. | |
| Paraemiologia 275: To scould like butter-wives. | |
| Familiar Letters 20: They scold like so many butter-whores or oyster-women at Billingsgate [F&H]. | |
| Devill incarnate 7: A wisp, a wisp, and a cuckingstool for the Butter-whore: all the Hucksters at Carsax and Oyster-women at Billings-gate cannot be heard so far as she by a quarter of a mile. | |
| Gregory, Father-Greybeard 215: That which is most admirable in the man is the pregnancy of his fancy in only one Art; to wit, the superfetation of wit in all the kinds of railing; the worst Butter-whore is to seek [...] he and she both being so fertile, sure the brood they ingender will all be Marvelous railers. | |
| Toleration discuss’d 343: Nay, they have taken in BRAWLING too, and made every Billingsgate Quarrel, every Brabble betwixt a Butter-Whore and an Oysterwench, a Subject of Consistorial Cognizance. | |
| Maggots 127: All the Tripe-women, Kitchin-stuff-wenches, Hogs-feet, Butter-Whores and Scullions. | |
| (trans.) Gargantua and Pantagruel (1927) II Bk V 557: The old fusty landlady kept her ground, swearing like any butter-whore, that the tarpaulins were very honest cods. | |
| Lives of Most Noted Highway-men, etc. I 129: He scolded like a Butter-Whore. | |
| Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 184: You kick’d, and danc’d, and bounc’d, and swore, / And scolded like a butter-whore. | |
| Burlesque Homer (4th edn) I 248: [as cit. 1772]. |
(Aus.) a newspaper.
| Bulletin (Sydney) 17 Jan. 7/1: We quote from the local butter-wrapper. |
In phrases
see separate entry.
see separate entry.
to be well aware, to have no illusions.
| Adventures of Johnny Newcome I 50: ‘You see it?’ — ‘Yes.’ —‘Well, that implies, You’ve got no butter in your eyes.’. |