Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun plural A person who tends to drop things.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One who lets drop anything he ought to hold; a butter-fingered person; specifically, in base-ball and cricket, one who ‘muffs’ a ball.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun someone who drops things (especially one who cannot catch a ball); a person who is butter-fingered.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun someone who is clumsy or uncoordinated; a klutz; someone who tends to drop things

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun someone who drops things (especially one who cannot catch a ball)

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From butter (a slippery substance) + finger

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Examples

  • Unfortuntely butterfingers is president, so staying there is probably more of a broken pottery situation than leaving at this point.

    Think Progress » 1,992 U.S. soldiers have died in Iraq. 2005

  • I used to play with my brothers at home, but they always called me 'butterfingers'; so I've quite given it up, and I won't even field for them now.

    The Nicest Girl in the School A Story of School Life Angela Brazil 1907

  • In the past, he has referred to one Kwame Brown as "butterfingers" and another

    NYT > Home Page By JONATHAN ABRAMS 2011

  • In the past, he has referred to one (Kwame Brown) as "butterfingers" and another (Vladimir Radmanovic) as a "space cadet."

    NYT > Home Page By JONATHAN ABRAMS 2011

  • :  England goalkeeper Robert Air Force One Green dominated the headlines as a "butterfingers" after ...

    The Offside 2010

  • Pakistan has had another attack of the 'butterfingers', costing the tourists the chance to put Australia, and captain Ricky Ponting in particular, under severe pressure on the opening day of the third Test at Bellerive Oval.

    Latest News - Yahoo!7 News 2010

  • 'butterfingers' as he brought up only his second Test century on his home ground to guide his team out of early trouble on the opening day of the third Test at Bellerive Oval.

    Sportal.com.au - Latest News Headlines 2010

  • 'butterfingers' as he brought up an unbeaten half-century to guide his team out of early trouble on the opening day of the third Test at Bellerive Oval.

    Sportal.com.au - Latest News Headlines Paul Gough at Bellerive Oval 2010

  • She was born with butterfingers and was a magnet for disaster, a one-woman wrecking ball.

    Shore Thing Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi 2011

  • The knife that precedes the bigger knife that precedes the spoon that precedes the flat fork, with stuff like that I'm all butterfingers

    Dinner at La Maison Bouche Marc Vincenz 2011

Comments

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  • By analogy with someone whose fingers are coated with butter during eating or cooking and drops something in the kitchen or while dining because of the slippery effect. The analogy seems to extend beyond butter to other slippery food coatings, and even outside the food context to slippery substances such as oil, e.g., "he dropped the wrench because his fingers were coated with grease from the car. His companion yelled at him, "You're a real butterfingers today"

    June 21, 2009

  • fajtłapa

    May 19, 2011