/bʊt͡ʃ/
OriginOriginally, it was probably used as an abbreviation of butcher. Later, in the 1940s, the sense “masculine lesbian” developed.
- slangVery masculine, with a masculine appearance or attitude.
“There, look, Mr. Horne! Vada that great butch lucoddy!”
“Nor can I credit that a — to put it crudely — proud bisexual butch Italian — albeit one lonely, poor, emotional and without strong will — which Giovanni is shown to be in the earlier part of the book,”
“Then I started going out with different kinds of women, and I started feeling more like I wanted to be more butch. […] I feel much more butch than I feel femme.”
- countable, slangA lesbian who appears masculine or acts in a masculine manner.
“Coming out appeals to the narcissistic pleasure of presenting to another a finished image of ourselves, which they return to us in exactly the same form: [someone tells] you [they are] a bisexual butc”
- intransitive, nonstandardTo work as a butcher.
“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 wa”
“Butch, to practice the trade of a butcher, to kill.”
“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. Cer”
- nonstandard, transitiveTo slaughter (animals) and prepare (meat) for market.
“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.”
““Couldn’t Ali butch the cow, please?” said Bill, whose ears were ever open when the question of food was raised.”
“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 but”
Formsbutcher(comparative) · more butch(comparative) · butchest(superlative) · most butch(superlative) · butches(plural) · butches(present, singular, third-person) · butching(participle, present) · butched(participle, past) · butched(past)