butch, adj. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

butch adj.

1. (orig. US gay) studiously masculine, of male or female homosexuals.

1932		‘R. Scully’ Scarlet Pansy 174: There was an elegant Miss Drexel-Bütsch of Philadelphia; also there were the Brown-Bütsches of New Rochelle (very classy indeed), and a whole Bütsch-Fuchs family in New York.
1949		‘N. Kent’ Divided Path 281: ‘[Y]ou should have seen her when I met her. The butchest gal on two feet’ [Simes:DLSS].
1949		Vice Versa (L.A.) Nov. 9: ‘Widely used ‘butch’ and ‘fluff’ (for ‘masculine’ and ‘feminine’ lesbians’) lacking somewhat in dignity [Simes:DLSS].
1950		C. Solomon Report from the Asylum in G. Feldman (ed.) Protest (1960) 137: in my corpulent forgetfulness, I no longer resembled a ‘butch’ fairy or ‘rough trade’.
1958		H. Greenwald Call Girl 119: Those call girls who engaged in overt homosexual behavior [...] alternated between the ‘butch’ and ‘femme’ roles.
1963		J. Rechy City of Night 97: I loved Chuck once [...] such a butch cowboy. [Ibid.] 181: A dike (a square shouldered butch lesbian).
1965		Guild Dict. Homosexual Terms 6: butch it up (v.): The act or effort of assuming the characteristics of one who is butch (q. v.); said of one who must do so in an effort to hide his homosexuality from his heterosexual friends.
1966		C. Dyer Staircase (1969) 53: [H]e’s as butch as Kong dear. Been married to half Charing Cross Road [Simes:DLSS].
1967		J. Rechy Numbers (1968) 16: […] ‘butch’ means very male and usually carries overtones of roughness.
1972		(con. 1965) E. Newton Mother Camp 110: You may be talking to one of the butchest queens in the world, but you still say, ‘Oh, girl’.
1975		K. Jay ‘A Journey to the End of Meetings’ in Jay & Young (1979) 453: They were not into butch/femme roles so prevalent in the fifties and sixties.
1977		G. Melly Rum, Bum & Concertina 60: The point was that, while coming on as what Bessie Smith called ‘a skippin’ twistin’ woman-actin’ man’, my real taste was also for butch young men, but with myself in the masculine role.
1988		OutRage (Melbourne) Feb. 23/3: I was dancing with this girl who was a very feminine lesbian, and this great big butch lady came up and tapped me on the shoulder [Simes:DLSS].
1988		P. Califia Macho Sluts 29: I love butch-looking women.
1991		W.S. Gilbert Spiked 120: The old queen evidently stood his ground, bravely doing his butch homie doorperson number [Simes:DLSS].
1992		D. Jarman diary 10 Nov. Smiling in Slow Motion (2000) 256: The repressive world in which I grew up, where the queens wittered: ‘He’s butch, she’s bitch’.
1993		Kennedy & Davies Boots of Leather (2014) 5: All commentators on twentieth-century lesbian life have noted the prominence of butch-fem roles.
2005		E. White My Lives 180: His disapproval of the American butch style didn’t keep him from being attracted to individual clones. [Ibid.] 282: Butch-femme role-playing might have approximated traditional male-female interactions.
2006		D. Seabrook Jack of Jumps (2007) 238: She thought Frances’s friend Beryl was a ‘butch lesbian’.
2007		J. Sauers Sex Lives Austral. Teenagers II 390: [girl speaker] I’d been copping a lot of flack for looking “butch”, I wanted to show them I wasn’t’ [Simes:DLSS].
2009		P. Temple Truth 194: [of a man] ‘No one hates you much. Just a select few.’ ‘Add this waiter,’ said Villani. ‘Loves you, pants on fire. So fucking butch’.
2010		K. Richards Life 168: Red, his butch gay chauffeur from Stepney. Red was a very nasty piece of work.
2010		(con. 1973) C. Stella Johnny Porno 188: Big black bubble-butted bitch-dykes like skinny white girls inside the joint.
2022		J. Hannaham Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit 150: ‘This ain’t bout no femme-queen realness or no butch queen up in drags’.

2. (orig. US) heterosexual.

1949		M. De Forrest Gay Year 144: ‘You don’t have to keep up that butch act with me, Cutie. I know you’re gay’ [Simes:DLSS].
1949		‘Swasarnt Nerf’ et al. Gay Girl’s Guide 4: butch: Not homosexual.
1951		D.W. Cory Homosexual in America 106: The homosexual, in inner-group language, is likely to call a heterosexual girl a fish, and a man who is attracted only to women is butch, but neither of these words is considered derogatory.
1973		J. Justin Prisoner 41: Don’t you threaten me! You’re as camp as a row of tents yourself anyway. Trying to go butch.

3. of a woman (irrespective of sexuality), masculine, aggressive.

1967		G. Freeman Undergrowth of Lit. (1969) 123: Whereas Kismet is young [...] and Jackie Joyce frankly butch in spite of the long blonde wig.
1982		P. Bailey An Eng. Madam 81: There she was, looking butch and gloomy.
1999		Guardian Guide 5–12 June 55: Mercedes McCambridge’s extraordinary, butch, land-grabbing Emma Small.
2003		Eble Campus Sl. Nov.
2006		J. Ridley What Fire Cannot Burn 289: ‘You look butch, Eddi.’ ‘Excuse me?’ ‘Not dyke, butch. Tough.’.
2010		A. Steinberg Running the Books 48: She was a butch woman who inhabited a crisp, tucked-in polo shirt.
2021		J. Ellroy Widespread Panic 136: He’s banging butch girls.

4. (orig. US) tough, manly.

1969		N. Cohn Awopbop. (1970) 94: He wasn’t tough and butch and boorish, he wasn’t one of the boys.
1970		San Diego Sailor 41: He would have been leery of asking for trouble among his butch pals.
1970		K. Mackey Cure 17: Makes me unambivalent physical approach - too butch - vague excitement drifts away and I am ice cold.
1982		P. Theroux London Embassy 155: It was a Polish freighter, full of butch sailors.
1990		(con. early 1950s) J. Ellroy L.A. Confidential 434: Billy came on butch.
1999		Observer 17 Oct. 15: The sequel to Grand Theft Auto [...] promises to be ‘bigger, butcher and better’ than the 1997 original.
2000		Indep. Rev. 7 Feb. 1: My big brother [...] would look quite threatening if he weren’t so pathetically speccy and puny and un-butch.
2011		Salon.com 20 Nov. 🌐 My actual father, a retired ironworker from Boston who makes a ponytail look positively butch.
2023		R. Milward Man-Eating Typewriter 107: The queens would be sitting there ultra dolly [...] with gross frothing butch pints of Allsopp .

In derivatives

butchly (adv.)

(gay) in a macho, masculine manner.

a.1973		‘J. Maggie’ Split the sky 133: In the middle of sucking each other, Frank stopped and said butchly, ‘I’m going to come, cocksucker, in your mouth [Simes:DLSS].
1988		A. Hollinghurst Swimming-Pool Library (1998) 194: I took Phil’s arm [...] he himself, keen to be so claimed, didn’t quite flow with it, butchly somehow held himself apart.

butchness (n.)

(gay) the quality or condition of exhibiting a masculine/macho style.

1974		Jay & Young After you’re out 80: [He had] carefully studied but charming male mannerisms [...] a facile. paper-thin butchness, touching and appealing in spite of its self-consciousness [Simes:DLSS].
1983		‘D. Curzon’ From Violent Men 30: ‘I just can’t stand that militant nelliness!’ ‘Well, he says he hates militant butchness—butchery he causes it’ [Simes:DLSS].
1998		K. Smith Virgin Sailors 79: [E]ven with his boldness, relative butchness and confidence, he still had an air of secretiveness about him [Simes:DLSS].

butchy (adj.)

(US) lesbian; masculine-looking.

1966		‘Petronius’ N.Y. Unexpurgated 166: [of men] The swishiest, daintiest, butchiest, most colorful, distinctive, loveliest, ugliest, maddest fags are right there.
1967		R. Allison Lesbianism 69: I’d changed my hair and style of dressing, and was looking real butchy...I made a cute little boy [Simes:DLSS].
1985		Totally True Diaries of an Eighties Roller Queen 🌐 1 Apr. Today I went to school dressed like a prep. I told everyone I sold my leather jacket and gave away my rock shirts because my mom didn’t want me to be so butchy anymore.
1990		S. Morgan Homeboy 170: The butchy tuxedo whorefit reminded Kitty of Bermuda.
1993		Kennedy & Davies Boots of Leather (2014) 210: ‘One girl [...] she dressed very butchy [...] tatoos on her arms, she really looked rugged. She looked rough’.

In compounds

butch-broad (n.) [broad n.² (3)]

a masculine lesbian.

1966		G. Samuels People vs Baby 34: [S]he got whistles, even from some strange, hard-faced women. ‘Freaks,’ Cookie scoffed. ‘Those butch-broads are real hard-up if they hafta whistle’ [Simes:DLSS].
1968		N. Heard Howard Street 216: Moochie, the meanest butch-broad around, was having an argument with Sis Domingoe.

butch-dike / -dyke (n.)

(US) .

1966		T. Erikson Half World 32: Far outnumbering the butch-dykes [...] are the lesbian women who live satisfctorily stabilized lives [Simes:DLSS].
1972		P. Kanto Lay-a-day 147: [H]e and Frank had balled Miss Mongolia and promised to vote for her and Miss Mongolia had taken on all five of the Iron Curtain judges, one of whom was a butch dyke [Simes:DLSS].

butch number (n.) (also butch queen) [number n. (1c)/queen n. (2a)]

a ‘masculine’ male homosexual; usu. in question, e.g. who’s that butch number over there?

1964		H. Selby Jr Last Exit to Brooklyn 50: [A] world of beauty, a world where there wasnt even a memory of johns or punks, butch queens [...], just the now of love.
1967		J. Rechy Numbers (1968) 16: He has been described recurrently in homosexual jargon as ‘a very butch number’ [...] A supreme accolade in that world, ‘butch’ means very male and usually carries overtones of roughness; a ‘number’ is a potential or actual or merely desired partner in vagrant sex.
1972		B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular 39: butch queen homosexual man whose virile activities and responsibilities make him hard to detect. The only distinction between the gay boy who is butch and the butch queen is that the latter will get fucked.
1979		Maledicta III:2 217: Latin homosexuals are perceived by others (and, to some extent, inevitably by themselves) as more fey than the [...] neo-macho English-speaking butch numbers who are more aggressive [...] and more confident than the butterflies and swishes of other climes.

butch-omi (n.)

(Polari) a tough man.

2023

R. Milward Man-Eating Typewriter 51: I now pictured a butch-omi twistering of the Madame’s tet off.