Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- Pertaining to or characteristic of a butcher; done in the manner of a buteher.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Like a butcher; without compunction; savage; bloody; inhuman; fell.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Like a
butcher ; characterised byslaughter ,savage . - adverb obsolete Like a butcher;
cruelly ,brutally .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective poorly done
- adjective accompanied by bloodshed
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Will they remove the only motive which could bring me to the butcherly spectacle of their combat?
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I think thou couldst not expect I should frame lies for thee; and after all, John, in my broken recollections of that night, I do bethink me of a butcherly looking mute, with a curtal axe, much like such a one as may have done yonder night job.
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After the murder of that little child, it seems to me one can never look with anything but horror upon the butcherly Herod who ordered it.
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Pughson, who, after dealing her one of his butcherly gibes, bade her to the blackboard, to grapple with the Seventh Proposition.
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I knew where he is, replied threescore and five; the wicked rogue, the butcherly dog, the murderer!
Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel 2002
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I knew where he is, replied threescore and five; the wicked rogue, the butcherly dog, the murderer!
Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel 2002
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And those zealots whose butcherly cruelties are so infamous in the Jewish story took the occasion of their horrid madness first from this liberty.
From the Talmud and Hebraica 1602-1675 1979
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True, Napoleon would have made him pay dear for his boldness, had there not occurred one or two of those accidents which often spoil the best-laid plans of war; but as it was, the butcherly Battle of Eylau was fought, both parties, and each with some show of reason, claiming the victory.
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 78, April, 1864 Various
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The role, though dull, was not a useless one, for Mrs Ruddle, with a large knife in her hand, was standing at the scullery door as though prepared to carry out a butcherly kind of post-mortem upon whatever might be brought up from the cellar.
Busman's Honeymoon Sayers, Dorothy L. 1937
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I went with some friends to the Bear Garden, where was cock-fighting, dog-fighting, bear - and bull-baiting, it being a famous day for all these butcherly sports, or rather barbarous cruelties.
Shakespearean Playhouses A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration Joseph Quincy Adams 1913
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