Part 887

2. To murder, or kill, especially in an unusually bloody or barbarous manner. Macaulay.

Butch"er*ing, n. 1. The business of a butcher.

2. The act of slaughtering; the act of killing cruelly and needlessly.

That dreadful butchering of one another. Addison.

Butch"er*li*ness (&?;), n. Butchery quality.

Butch"er*ly, a. Like a butcher; without compunction; savage; bloody; inhuman; fell. "The victim of a butcherly murder." D. Webster.

What stratagems, how fell, how butcherly, This deadly quarrel daily doth beget! Shak.

Butch"er's broom` (&?;). (Bot.) A genus of plants (Ruscus); esp. R. aculeatus, which has large red berries and leaflike branches. See Cladophyll.

Butch"er*y (&?;), n. [OE. bocherie shambles, fr. F. boucherie. See Butcher, n.] 1. The business of a butcher. [Obs.]

2. Murder or manslaughter, esp. when committed with unusual barbarity; great or cruel slaughter. Shak.

The perpetration of human butchery. Prescott.

3. A slaughterhouse; the shambles; a place where blood is shed. [Obs.]

Like as an ox is hanged in the butchery. Fabyan.

Syn. -- Murder; slaughter; carnage. See Massacre.

But"ler (&?;), n. [OE. boteler, F. bouteillier a bottle-bearer, a cupbearer, fr. LL. buticularius, fr. buticula bottle. See Bottle a hollow vessel.] An officer in a king's or a nobleman's household, whose principal business it is to take charge of the liquors, plate, etc.; the head servant in a large house.

The butler and the baker of the king of Egypt. Gen. xl. 5.

Your wine locked up, your butler strolled abroad. Pope.

But"ler*age (&?;), n. (O. Eng. Law) A duty of two shillings on every tun of wine imported into England by merchant strangers; -- so called because paid to the king's butler for the king. Blackstone.

But"ler*ship, n. The office of a butler.

But"ment (&?;), n. [Abbreviation of Abutment.] 1. (Arch.) A buttress of an arch; the supporter, or that part which joins it to the upright pier.

2. (Masonry) The mass of stone or solid work at the end of a bridge, by which the extreme arches are sustained, or by which the end of a bridge without arches is supported.

Butment cheek (Carp.), the part of a mortised timber surrounding the mortise, and against which the shoulders of the tenon bear. Knight.

{ Butt, But } (&?;), n. [F. but butt, aim (cf. butte knoll), or bout, OF. bot, end, extremity, fr. boter, buter, to push, butt, strike, F. bouter; of German origin; cf. OHG. bzan, akin to E. beat. See Beat, v. t.] 1. A limit; a bound; a goal; the extreme bound; the end.

Here is my journey's end, here my butt And very sea mark of my utmost sail. Shak.

As applied to land, the word is nearly synonymous with mete, and signifies properly the end line or boundary; the abuttal.

2. The thicker end of anything. See But.

3. A mark to be shot at; a target. Sir W. Scott.

The groom his fellow groom at butts defies, And bends his bow, and levels with his eyes. Dryden.