butcher

Etymology 1

From Middle English bocher, boucher, from Old French bouchier (“goat slaughterer”), from Old French bouc (“goat”), from Medieval Latin buccus (“he-goat”), of Germanic origin. More at English buck.

noun

1. A person who prepares and sells meat (and sometimes also slaughters the animals).
   He looked in vain into the stalls for the butcher who had sold fresh meat twice a week, on market days... 1900, Charles W. Chesnutt, chapter I, in 'The House Behind the Cedars
2. (figurative) A brutal or indiscriminate killer.
3. (Cockney rhyming slang, from butcher's hook) A look.
4. (informal, obsolete) A person who sells candy, drinks, etc. in theatres, trains, circuses, etc.
5. (colloquial, archaic, card games) A king playing card.
   Coordinate term: bitch

verb

1. (transitive) To slaughter (animals) and prepare (meat) for market.
2. (transitive) To work as a butcher.
   He tells me he now earns three times as much as he did butchering. 2008, Monte Dwyer, Red In The Centre: The Australian Bush Through Urban Eyes, Monyer Pty Ltd, page 121
3. (transitive) To kill brutally.
4. (transitive) To ruin (something), often to the point of defamation.
   The band at that bar really butchered "Hotel California".
5. (transitive) To mess up hopelessly; to botch.
   I am bad at pronouncing names, so my apologies if I butcher any of your names.

Etymology 2

butch + -er

adj

1. comparative form of butch: more butch
   Weaver and Shaw dance together and almost immediately another butch, an even butcher butch (Leslie Feinberg), cuts in to dance with Shaw (though Shaw would kill me if she heard me call someone a butcher butch). 2003, Alisa Solomon, Re-Dressing the Canon: Essays on Theatre and Gender, page 170