Butchery

/ˈbʊt͡ʃəɹi/ · noun

Meaning

The butchering of meat..

Definitions by Sense

1. The butchering of meat.
2. A butcher's shop; a meat market.
3. The cruel, ruthless killings of humans, as if at a slaughterhouse.
4. (rare) An abattoir.
5. A disastrous effort, an atrocious failure.
6. (slang) The stereotypical behaviors and accoutrements of a butch lesbian.

Example Sentences

(coordinate in precise usage referring to animal carcasses)

This butchery begins in the first Japanese month. For this purpose they put the animal's head between two long poles, which are squeezed together by fifty or sixty people, both men and women. When the bear is dead they eat his flesh, keep the liver as a medicine

The tyrannous and bloody act is done,— The most arch deed of piteous massacre That ever yet this land was guilty of. Dighton and Forrest, who I did suborn To do this piece of ruthless butchery

1899 On the third Friday Jimmie was dropped at the door of the school from the doctor's buggy. The other children, notably those who had already passed over the mountain of distress, looked at him with glee, seeing in him another lamb brought to butchery. — Stephen Crane, Making an Orator.

1901 There was good grass on the selection all the year. I’d picked up a small lot—about twenty head—of half-starved steers for next to nothing, and turned them on the run; they came on wonderfully, and my brother-in-law (Mary’s sister’s husband), who was running a butchery at Gulgong, gave me a good price for them. — Henry Lawson, A Double Buggy at Lahey Creek.

I often wondered how Walcott the director could stand listening to some of his marvelous words and phrases being subjected to verbal butchery as sometimes occurred when a player did not understand what he was speaking or reading.

Synonyms for butchery

Antonyms for butchery

Related Words

Word Forms

• butcheries

Usage Notes

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