Butter

Butter, but′ėr, n. an oily substance obtained from cream by churning.—v.t. to spread over with butter.—ns. Butt′er-bird, the name in Jamaica for the rice-bunting; Butt′er-boat, a table vessel for holding melted butter; Butt′er-bump, a bittern; Butt′er-bur, -dock, the sweet coltsfoot; Butt′ercup, a plant of the Crowfoot genus, with a cup-like flower of a golden yellow; Butt′er-fing′ers, one who lets a cricket-ball he ought to catch slip through his fingers; Butt′er-fish (see Gunnel); Butt′erfly, the name of an extensive group of beautiful winged insects: (fig.) a light-headed person.—adj. light, flighty, like a butterfly.—ns. Butt′erine, an artificial fatty compound sold as a substitute for butter—since 1887 only allowed to be sold under the names margarine or oleo-margarine; Butt′er-milk, the milk that remains after the butter has been separated from the cream by churning; Butt′er-nut, the oily nut of the North American white walnut, the tree itself or its light-coloured close-grained wood: the nut of a lofty timber-tree of Guiana—the souari-nut; Butt′er-scotch, a kind of toffee containing a large admixture of butter; Butt′er-tree, a genus of plants found in the East Indies and in Africa, remarkable for a sweet buttery substance yielded by their seeds when boiled; Butt′er-wife, Butt′er-wom′an, a woman who makes and sells butter; Butt′er-wort, a genus of small plants found in marshy places, so called either from the power of the leaves to coagulate milk, or from their peculiar sliminess.—adj. Butt′ery, like butter. [A.S. butere; Ger. butter; both from L. butyrum—Gr. boutyron—bous ox, tyros, cheese.]