different between butcher vs cleaver

English

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?b?t?.?(?)/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?b?t??.?/
• Rhymes: -?t??(?)

Etymology 1

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

Noun

butcher (plural butchers)

1. A person who prepares and sells meat (and sometimes also slaughters the animals).
2. (figuratively) 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.

Synonyms

• carnager
• flesher 1
• mayhemist
• slayer 2

Derived terms

Descendants

• ? Hindi: ????? (b?ca?)
• ? Urdu: ????? (b?ca?)

Translations

Verb

butcher (third-person singular simple present butchers, present participle butchering, simple past and past participle butchered)

1. (transitive) To slaughter (animals) and prepare (meat) for market.

   Synonyms: kill, slaughter

2. (transitive) To kill brutally.

   Synonyms: massacre, slay

3. (transitive) To ruin (something), often to the point of defamation.

   Synonym: murder

Translations

Etymology 2

butch +? -er

Adjective

butcher

1. comparative form of butch: more butch

Anagrams

• Buchert

English

Etymology

From cleave +? -er; compare Middle English clevere.

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /?kliv?/
• Rhymes: -i?v?(r)

Noun

cleaver (plural cleavers)

1. A squarish, heavy knife used by butchers for hacking through bones, etc.
   • 1883, Howard Pyle, The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood Chapter V

     When he came to Nottingham, he entered that part of the market where butchers stood, and took up his inn in the best place he could find. Next, he opened his stall and spread his meat upon the bench, then, taking his cleaver and steel and clattering them together, he trolled aloud in merry tones:...

   • 1946, Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

     Concurrently with Flay's visualization of the cleaver falling—the cleaver fell.

2. (music, Bahamas) A type of clave, or rhythm stick, a concussive musical instrument used in traditional Bahamian music.
3. (metaphoric) The act of eliminating someone or something, especially when done by someone with a history of other eliminations; a dismissal, rejection, or removal.

   Synonym: axe

Usage notes

As a musical instrument, cleaver is normally used only in the plural, just like the more common synonym claves, which is far more often used internationally and is better known as a part of Cuban music. In the Bahamas, cleavers is the more common terminology.

Related terms

• cleave

Translations