butter

Etymology 1

From Middle English buter, butter, from Old English butere, from Proto-West Germanic *buterā, from Latin būtȳrum, from Ancient Greek βούτῡρον (boútūron, “cow cheese”), compound of βοῦς (boûs, “ox, cow”) and τῡρός (tūrós, “cheese”).

noun

1. A soft, fatty foodstuff made by churning the cream of milk (generally cow's milk).
2. Any of various foodstuffs made from other foods or oils, similar in consistency to, eaten like or intended as a substitute for butter (preceded by the name of the food used to make it).
   peanut butter
   soy butter
   chocolate butter
3. Any of various substances made from other (especially plant-based) oils or fats, used in moisturizers, cosmetics, etc.
   Butters such as cocoa, illippe, kokum, mango, murumuru, sal (shorea) and shea occur naturally and are obtained directly from the plant. 2016-09-07, Elaine Stavert, Beauty Oils & Butter, GMC PUBLICATIONS LTD
   Butters are triglycerides […]. Cocoa butter (Theobroma cacao) is used as an emollient in topical cosmetic formulations, […] South American and the Brazilian rainforest offer various plants with common butters used in the industry that include […] cupuaçu butter […] and murumuru butter from the murumuru palm tree (Astrocaryum murumuru). India is another source of many butters used in cosmetic products, including kokum butter extracted from the seeds of the Garcinia indica tree, mango butter from the Mangifera indica tree and shea butter[…] 2019-04-05, Heather A.E. Benson, Michael S. Roberts, Vania Rodrigues Leite-Silva, Kenneth Walters, Cosmetic Formulation: Principles and Practice, CRC Press, page 227
4. (obsolete, chemistry) Any specific soft substance.
   Butter of antimony; butter of arsenic
5. (aviation, slang) A smooth plane landing.
   That landing was total butter!

verb

1. (transitive) To spread butter on.
   Butter the toast.
2. (skiing, snowboarding) To move one's weight backwards or forwards onto the tips or tails of one's skis or snowboard so only the tip or tail is in contact with the snow. Similar to applying butter to bread with then end of a butterknife.
   1. To spin on skis or a snowboard using only the tips or tails being in contact with the snow
3. (slang, obsolete, transitive) To increase (stakes) at every throw of dice, or every game.

Etymology 2

butt + -er

noun

1. Someone who butts, or who butts in.
   […] these animals lacked self-correcting mechanisms of the kind seen in modern head-butters such as goats and big-horn sheep that would have kept the tremendous forces aligned with the rest of the skeleton. 2005, David E. Fastovsky, David B. Weishampel, The Evolution and Extinction of the Dinosaurs, page 156