butcher

n. [ OE. bochere, bochier, OF. bochier, F. boucher, orig., slaughterer of buck goats, fr. OF. boc, F. bouc, a buck goat; of German or Celtic origin. See Buck the animal. ] 1. One who slaughters animals, or dresses their flesh for market; one whose occupation it is to kill animals for food. [ 1913 Webster ]

2. A slaughterer; one who kills in large numbers, or with unusual cruelty; one who causes needless loss of life, as in battle. “Butcher of an innocent child.” Shak. [ 1913 Webster ]

Butcher's meat, such flesh of animals slaughtered for food as is sold for that purpose by butchers, as beef, mutton, lamb, and pork. [ 1913 Webster ]

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 ]