butchery
Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
butcher/ˈbʊtʃə(r)/
▶noun a person whose trade is cutting up and selling meat in a shop.
■ a person who slaughters and cuts up animals for food.
■ a person who kills brutally.
▶verb- 1 slaughter or cut up (an animal) for food.
■ kill (someone) brutally.
- 2 ruin deliberately or through incompetence.
– phrases
have (or take) a butcher's Brit. informal have a look. [butcher's from butcher's hook, rhyming sl. for a ‘look’.]
have (or take) a butcher's Brit. informal have a look. [butcher's from butcher's hook, rhyming sl. for a ‘look’.]
– derivatives
butchery noun (pl. butcheries).
butchery noun (pl. butcheries).
– origin ME: from an Anglo-Norman Fr. var. of OFr. bochier, from boc ‘he-goat’, prob. of the same ultimate origin as buck1.
'butchery' also found in these Oxford entries:
