Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

buttery

/ˈbʌt(ə)ɹi/

Word Rarity Rare

Frequency: 2.91 in modern English

Syllables: but-te-ry
IPA: /ˈbʌt(ə)ɹi/

12

Scrabble Score

7

Letters

3

Syllables

6

Unique Chars

Meaning

adj

Made with or tasting of butter.

adj

Resembling butter in some way, such as yellow color or smooth texture.

adj

Marked by insincere flattery; obsequious.

Informal

adj

Ellipsis of buttery smooth.

noun

noun

A room for keeping food or beverages; a storeroom.

noun

A room in a university where snacks are sold.

British usage

name

A surname from Anglo-Norman.

Example Sentences

"The buttery-tasting cookie was actually made with margarine, but you couldn't tell by tasting it."
"The old paper was a buttery color you no longer get."
"While the European pear is, at its finest, buttery and surrenders to the slightest pressure, Asian pears are firm, very crisp, hugely juicy and sweet and, in some cases, highly aromatic – spicy almost."
"Most libraries have smooth, buttery legatos and exciting, natural-sounding spiccatos."
"He'll be nothing but enraptured with your buttery words ."
"Dawson, for one, is on the right wavelength, goosing his buttery game-show host persona into a caricature of unctuous evil."

Etymology

From Middle English buttry, equivalent to butter + -y. Piecewise doublet of butyric, butter ultimately being from Latin būtȳrum and -y being a doublet of -ic.

Origin

Source language: Middle English

Word Breakdown

Root: buttry, boterie, buteria, botāria
Suffix: butter

Regional Pronunciation

American English: /ˈbʌt(ə)ɹi/
British English: /ˈbʌtəɹi/

Usage

Informal
British usage

Inflected Forms

butterier (comparative) butteriest (superlative) butteries (plural) Butterys (plural)

Derived Forms

butteriness

Phrases

peanut-buttery buttery bar buttery hatch kiss-her-in-the-buttery meet-her-in-the-entry-and-kiss-her-in-the-buttery nothing-buttery

Frequently Paired Words

peanut-buttery oily slick smarmy nothing-buttery Butterey Buttrey Buttry

Synonyms

butterish butterlike butyraceous butyric fulsome oily oleaginous smarmy soapy unctuous

Questions

How do you pronounce buttery?: The recorded pronunciation is /ˈbʌt(ə)ɹi/.
What does buttery mean?: Made with or tasting of butter.
Where does buttery come from?: It is traced to Middle English.

How to pronounce buttery

Open the pronunciation page — Open the Speakur entry for “buttery”.
Read the phonetic spelling — Read the IPA spelling (/ˈbʌt(ə)ɹi/) so you know which sounds to aim for.
Play the audio — Click Play to hear reference audio for “buttery”.
Repeat and practice — Say “buttery” aloud, matching stress and vowels until it feels natural.