butcher

v. t. [ imp. & p. p. Butchered p. pr. & vb. n. Butchering. ] 1. To kill or slaughter (animals) for food, or for market; as, to butcher hogs. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. To murder, or kill, especially in an unusually bloody or barbarous manner. Macaulay. [ 1913 Webster ]

[ Ithocles ] was murdered, rather butchered. Ford. [ 1913 Webster ]

3. to bungle badly; to botch; -- used also when an object is damaged (literally or figuratively) in an activity; as, the new choir butchered the hymn.
Syn. -- mangle. [ PJC ]

n. 1. (Zool.) any species of shrike of the genus Lanius, so called because they impale their prey on thorns. [ 1913 Webster + WordNet 1.5 ]

2. (Zool.) large carnivorous Australian bird with the shrikelike habit of impaling prey on thorns. [ WordNet 1.5 ]

☞ The Lanius excubitor is the common butcher bird of Europe. In England, the bearded tit is sometimes called the lesser butcher bird. The American species are Lanius borealis, or northern butcher bird, and Lanius Ludovicianus or loggerhead shrike. The name butcher bird is derived from its habit of suspending its prey impaled upon thorns, after killing it. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. 1. The business of a butcher. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. The act of slaughtering; the act of killing cruelly and needlessly. [ 1913 Webster ]

That dreadful butchering of one another. Addison. [ 1913 Webster ]

n. Butchery quality. [ 1913 Webster ]

a. Like a butcher; without compunction; savage; bloody; inhuman; fell. “The victim of a butcherly murder.” D. Webster. [ 1913 Webster ]

What stratagems, how fell, how butcherly,
This deadly quarrel daily doth beget! Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

(Bot.) A genus of plants (Ruscus); esp. Ruscus aculeatus, which has large red berries and leaflike branches. See Cladophyll. [ 1913 Webster ]