butcher

Universal Words noun, verb noun 1 a person whose job is cutting up and selling meat in a shop/store or killing animals for this purpose 2 (butcher's) (plural butchers) a shop/store that sells meat: He owns the butcher's in the main street. 3 a person who kills people in a cruel and violent way IDIOMS have / take a butcher's (BrE, slang) to have a look at sth ORIGIN From rhyming slang, in which butcher's hook stands for 'look'. verb [VN] 1 to kill people in a very cruel and violent way 2 to kill animals and cut them up for use as meat 3 (especially AmE) to spoil sth by doing it very badly: The script was good, but those guys butchered it.