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Butcher   Listen
noun
Butcher  n.  
1.
One who slaughters animals, or dresses their flesh for market; one whose occupation it is to kill animals for food.
2.
A slaughterer; one who kills in large numbers, or with unusual cruelty; one who causes needless loss of life, as in battle. "Butcher of an innocent child."
Butcher's meat, such flesh of animals slaughtered for food as is sold for that purpose by butchers, as beef, mutton, lamb, and pork.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Butcher" Quotes from Famous Books



... mother used to think much. But who can tell? No one except my father, the Sun, and he guards his secrets—for the present. At least Urco wearies me with his coarse crimes and his drunkenness, though the army loves him because he is a butcher and liberal. We quarrelled the other day over the small matter of this lady Quilla, and he threatened me till I grew wrath and said that I would not hand him my crown as I had purposed to do. Yes, I grew wrath and hated him for whose sake I had sinned because his mother bewitched me. Lord-from-the-Sea," ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard

... of the pair; and others take fire as fast as tinder at the smallest offense, and are as dangerous as gunpowder. To have a fellow going about the farm as cross with every body as a bear with a sore head, with a temper as sour as verjuice and as sharp as a razor, looking as surly as a butcher's dog, is a great nuisance; and yet there may be some good points about the man, so that he may be a man for all that; but poor, soft Tommy, as green as grass and as ready to bend as a willow, is nobody's money and every ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller

... parents and her kindred in her own home. Her associates here, you possibly know, are an impossible colonel and his never-before-approached valet, with some South American Indian planters, and, I believe, a pork-butcher's daughter. But of THEM—it makes nothing. ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte

... couple of cyclists, a jobbing gardener I employed sometimes, a girl carrying a baby, Gregg the butcher and his little boy, and two or three loafers and golf caddies who were accustomed to hang about the railway station. There was very little talking. Few of the common people in England had anything but the vaguest astronomical ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells

... and backward, go into their homes, and live their lives with them. See how they grow their own food, and that without the use of modern machinery; how they grind their own grain into flour, salt or dry their own vegetables, butcher their own meat—if they have any; how they raise cotton, pick it, card it, spin it, dye it, weave it into cloth, and make the clothes for the family without the aid of a sewing machine. And then watch them (as I often have) make beautiful embroidery ...
— Have We No Rights? - A frank discussion of the "rights" of missionaries • Mabel Williamson

... a small bill at the grocer's, and all his neighbors, in the ascending grades of commercial respectability, no matter how prompt and accurate they may be in the discharge of their obligations, are sure to owe the butcher and baker and milkman a greater or less amount. In fact the conduct of life on a cash basis would be impossible or intolerable. Of course, too, there are scattered all over the country men who owe a great ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin

... of the world," answered Evellin, "to trust smooth talkers. Sentiments are easily uttered; they are all the fashion; and the butcher now uses them to the lamb he slaughters. I am a disabled soldier of that King whom regicides are now subjecting to the mockery of a public trial; and I am as ready to follow my Prince to the scaffold as I have been to fly to his ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West

... shilling to enter the field, whereas on other days you can picnic in it or play cricket in it without paying anything at all. Mr. Bates is a kind of absentee landlord so far as we are concerned, for he is the butcher at Framford, four miles away, and only brings the proceeds of his butchery to us on Tuesdays and Fridays, which is the reason why on Mondays and Thursdays one usually has eggs and bacon ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 1st, 1920 • Various

... Make every butcher boy a prophet. Make people sip their coffee thinking of the next two hundred years. Make streets into posters. Make people look out of their windows on streets—thousands of miles of streets ...
— The Ghost in the White House • Gerald Stanley Lee

... tat, toe, My first go, Four jolly butcher boys All in a row. Stick one up, Stick one down, Stick one in The ...
— My Book of Indoor Games • Clarence Squareman

... to be enticed into the garden; he followed his treacherous friend with the confidence of the lamb following the butcher, and, at the very moment when he least thought of it, he found himself fastened in the sack that was to be his tomb. Lustucru, who was hiding, appeared suddenly, bearing two enormous cudgels; he handed one to his accomplice, and taking hold of the sack, cried:—"Now!—to ...
— The Story of a Cat • mile Gigault de La Bdollire

... two of which it was hollow, and shaped like a leather punch, with an opening for anything forced into the hollow at the punch end to be pushed out above — in fact, in this respect it exactly resembled a butcher's pole-axe. It was with this punch end, as we afterwards discovered, that Umslopogaas usually struck when fighting, driving a neat round hole in his adversary's skull, and only using the broad cutting edge for a circular sweep, or ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard

... do her no good. How she had joyed in a new dress when it had been so hard to come by, so slow in coming, and when he would go with her to the choosing of it! But her gowns now were hardly of more interest to her than the joints of meat which the butcher brought to the door with the utmost regularity. It behoved the butcher to send good beef and the milliner to send good silk, and there was ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope

... certainly never opposed his master's project by any arguments founded upon good faith, Christian charity, or the sense of honor. To kill the Queen of England, subvert the laws of her realm, burn her fleets, and butcher her subjects, while the mask of amity and entire consideration was sedulously preserved—all these projects were admitted to be strictly meritorious in themselves, although objections were taken as to the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... there are not above 1,500,000 mouths at present to feed, so that with proper care the supplies may be made to last for three months. Prices are, however, already rising. We have a bread and a meat maximum, but to force a butcher to sell you a cutlet at the tariff price, one has to go with a corporal's guard, which cannot always be procured. The Gazette Officielle contains a decree regulating the sale of horse-flesh. I presume if the siege ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere

... man. They called him a nigger ruler. He used to go from place to place and handle niggers. He carried his cowhide with him when he went. My master said, 'A man is a damn fool to have a valuable slave and butcher him up.' He said, 'If they need a whipping, whip them, but don't beat them so they can't work.' He never whipped his slaves. No man ever hit me a lick but my father. No man. I ain't got no ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: Volume II, Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... the kind. You get them two butcher knives out of the table drawer and we'll scrape off the wood, because you can't wash that stain out'n a floor." He looked suddenly at Jud with a glint in his eyes. "I know, ...
— Way of the Lawless • Max Brand

... reasoning of Shylock and the Duke of Newcastle. There would be an end of the right of property if you were to interdict a landlord from ejecting a tenant, if you were to force a gentleman to employ a particular butcher, and to take as much beef this year as last year. The principle of the right of property is that a man is not only to be allowed to dispose of his wealth rationally and usefully, but to be allowed to indulge his passions and caprices, to employ whatever tradesmen ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... debts and has due respect for property rights. Perhaps Diogenes had gone more deeply into the matter of paying debts as a mark of honesty than those who go no further in their thinking than the grocer, the butcher, and the tax-man. ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson

... top of a tall cupboard that ran along one side of the room, while various kitchen utensils strewn over the floor testified to a preliminary skirmish. As we entered the door leading from the cellar stairs Ivan jumped down and ran out the rear door, while La Violette grabbed up a butcher-knife from a table and gave chase ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry

... pacify them, and get them to return to their duty, they had determined not to go to work until they were paid." On the 8th, Lieutenant Shepherd again wrote, "that Gameiro having ceased to supply the frigate with fresh provisions, he had, on his own responsibility, ordered the butcher to continue supplying them as usual." On Lieutenant Shepherd waiting upon the Envoy to remonstrate against this system of starvation, he replied—and his words are extracted from Lieutenant Shepherd's letter to me, that as "His Lordship did not ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald

... no hope except in atheism, and for atheism the world was not ready. Hemmed back on that side, men rushed like sheep to escape the butcher, and were driven to Mary; only too happy in finding protection and hope in a being who could understand the language they talked, and the excuses they had to offer. How passionately they worshipped Mary, the Cathedral of Chartres shows; and how this worship elevated the whole sex, all the literature ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams

... cangue at the execution ground of Shinagawa a cut was made in each side of his neck. Smeared with blood the bamboo saw was placed on the cangue in inviting proximity to the head. For five hours people passed, with curious glances, but no movement to release the criminal. An Eta (outcast) butcher sidled up. The guards watched him with curiosity. Picking up the saw he made one pass. At the yell given by Iemon he dropped the implement and fled in terror, amid the laughter of guards and by-standers. Toward the hour ...
— The Yotsuya Kwaidan or O'Iwa Inari - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 1 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville

... know a butcher paints, 165 A baker rhymes for his pursuit, Candlestick-maker much acquaints His soul with song, or, haply mute, Blows out his brains upon ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning

... said. "You've taken my men out of my command. I should only be your butcher if I killed him now." Do you see what I ...
— Puck of Pook's Hill • Rudyard Kipling

... DUKE OF, second son of George II., was defeated at Fontenoy by the French in 1745; defeated the Pretender next year at Culloden; earned the title of "The Butcher" by his cruelties afterwards; was beaten in all his battles ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... drama was being enacted in Cairo, similar scenes were taking place in those provinces whose governors had received stringent commands to butcher every remaining Mamluk in Egypt. THUs nearly all perished, and that famous ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport

... last the butchers were fain to pull off their sleeves, that they might not be known, and were soundly beaten out of the field, and some deeply wounded and bruised; till at last the weavers went out tryumphing, calling L100 for a butcher. I to Mr. Reeves to see a microscope, he having been with me to-day morning, and there chose one which I will have. Thence back and took up young Mrs. Harman, a pretty bred and pretty humoured woman whom I could love well, though not handsome, yet for her person ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... "When El Negrito, the butcher, came down from the hills on his murderous raid and killed Dad among the rest, I learned that his visit had been prearranged and paid for by a white man. He had been hired to burn and rape and slay in order to evoke United States intervention, by ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant

... that I wish to talk about state economies with that old money-sack, or to listen to boastings of deeds he never did in war from a half-bred Nubian butcher?" ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard

... he knew I was there. And, putting me out of the question altogether, what can you think of an officer who will coolly leave a party of his men to be slaughtered like sheep in a butcher's yard because the poor beggars happen to have ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell

... in the year 1793 (it was just when the French had chopped poor Louis's head off), Dobble and I, gay young chaps as ever wore sword by side, had cast our eyes upon two young ladies by the name of Brisket, daughters of a butcher in the town where we were quartered. The dear girls fell in love with us, of course. And many a pleasant walk in the country, many a treat to a tea-garden, many a smart ribbon and brooch used Dobble and I (for his father allowed him 600L., and our purses ...
— The Fatal Boots • William Makepeace Thackeray

... right way of going about it!" cried Martin. It was not his natural voice, but he was so accustomed to a peremptory tone now that he could use no other. "We want more pomp here. Who ever heard of the festal oxen being tied to a cart's tail? Why, the butcher ought to lead the pair of them by the horns, one on each side, and you ought to stick lemons on the tips of their horns, ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai

... don't you think?" Miss Clementina said to the maid, as she watched him eat. "But he has a dreadful appetite. I think we'd best tell the butcher's boy to bring some dog's ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various

... always be willing to take the lead. All I would have to do would be to give her the reins, and she would keep the team going. She would be willing to walk the first into church—to interview the butcher and baker—to stand between me and the world. A wife like that would be some comfort to a bashful man. Besides, she was rich! Had she not said it? I have seldom had a happier hour than that of our swift, exhilarating drive. The colored driver, gorgeous ...
— The Blunders of a Bashful Man • Metta Victoria Fuller Victor

... principle of the survival of the fittest, which in those days was England's moral teaching, had made the country one huge butcher's shop. Amongst the carcasses of countless victims there had fattened and grown purple many butchers, physically strengthened by the smell of blood and sawdust. These had begotten many children. Following out ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... living in Norridgeport. They have become Spiritualists, I understand, and cultivate Mediums. Hollins, when I last heard of him, was a Deputy Surveyor in the New York Custom-House. Perkins Brown is our butcher, here in Waterbury, and he often asks me,—'Do you take chloride of soda on your beefsteaks? 'He is as fat as a prize ox, and the father ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various

... of their neighbors. Without formulating definitely how it was to happen, Selma had expected to be received with open arms into a society eager to recognize her salient qualities. But apparently, at first glance, everybody's interest was absorbed by the butcher and grocer, the dressmaker and the domestic hearth. That is, the other people in their row seemed to be content to do as they were doing. The husbands went to town every day—town which lay in the murky distance—and their wives were friendly ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant

... behold the mummy of the villain Love.' Such love as it was—the love of the privileged butcher for the lamb. The burden of the letters, put in epigram, was rattlesnake and bird. A narrative of Anastasia's sister, Elizabeth, signed and sealed, with names of witnesses appended, related in brief ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... Dick Turpin was born in Essex, England, and was originally a butcher. Afterwards he became a notorious highwayman, and was finally executed for horse-stealing, 10 April 1739. He and his steed Black Bess are well described in W. H. Ainsworth's ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson

... spilt; towns and villages were burnt, and nothing but havoc, devastation and destruction, was seen from one end of the continent to the other; and this was not all; but, to complete the horrid scene, an infernal horde of savage murderers was prompted by our enemy to butcher our helpless wives and children! Then did our fathers' patriotic hearts swell in their bosoms, and they were ten-fold more resolved to break the yoke ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse

... said Stopford. "But couldn't you got the stuff from a butcher? There's a shop just across ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman

... scent of nuts! It's churned especially for me, you know. Then here are the eggs. They were laid only yesterday, I'll answer for it. And, in fact, that one there is this morning's. And look at the cutlets! They're wonderful, aren't they? The butcher cuts them carefully when he sees me. And then here's a cream cheese, real cream, you know, it will be delicious! Ah! and here's the surprise, something dainty, some radishes, some pretty little pink radishes. Just fancy! radishes ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... forced to share that disability; so he attains his end in an indirect way, and lives thereafter in such happiness as nature has given him capacity to enjoy. Shylock will neither put him into gaol nor seize his field. We do not send our milch cow to the butcher. Shylock owns a hundred such as he, and much trouble ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA

... constant annoyance to have their surnames so much alike. Matters were made more unpleasant by mistakes of the butcher, the grocer, and so on,—Gilton, 79 Holmes Avenue, was so much like Bilton, 77 Holmes Avenue. Gilton changed his butcher every time he sent his dinner to Bilton; and though the mistakes were generally rectified, neither of the two ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull

... even then he had organized a little business group of horse holders called "Shakespeare's boys." He had the business sense, and he forced his way into the theatre and became a stockholder. Shakespeare was always an adventurer. He had to work in a butcher's shop, but before he was nineteen he was already married to a woman of twenty-six, and none too soon for ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1920 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... subject in the House, I am told that a leading member of great ability, little conversant in these matters, observed, that the general uniform dearness of butcher's meat, butter, and cheese could not be owing to a defective produce of wheat; and on this ground insinuated a suspicion of some unfair practice on the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... on sport with killing in it. He does not mind eating meat, but he likes to have the butcher do the killing. But I reckon he is a little too tender-hearted. But, as for me, I like sport of some kinds, especially when you don't have your pity or your sympathies awakened by seeing your prey enjoying life ...
— Pomona's Travels - A Series of Letters to the Mistress of Rudder Grange from her Former - Handmaiden • Frank R. Stockton

... planted, but rather sparingly, with limes, birches, and a few specimens of the white-ash, which in summertime overshadow the pavement, and shelter a passing pedestrian when caught in a shower. At one end of Our Terrace, there is a respectable butcher's shop, a public-house, and a shop which is perpetually changing owners, and making desperate attempts to establish itself as something or other, without any particular partiality for any particular line ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 448 - Volume 18, New Series, July 31, 1852 • Various

... in my opinion, was not in drawing these as carefully as possible, but in the rather unfriendly glee with which, one could not help feeling, he did so. It is also true that he missed some of the grander mountain-peaks in Meredith's character. Lady Butcher, on the other hand, is far less successful than Mr. Ellis in drawing a portrait which makes us feel that now we understand something of the events that gave birth to The Egoist and Richard Feverel and Modern ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd

... trimmings, a little science, lots of pluck, good-natured as a steer in peace, formidable as a red-eyed bison in the crack of hand-to-hand battle! Who forgets the great muster-day, and the collision of the classic with the democratic forces? The huge butcher, fifteen stone,—two hundred and ten pounds,—good weight,—steps out like Telamonian Ajax, defiant. No words from Harry, the Baltimorean,—one of the quiet sort, who strike first, and do the talking, if there is any, afterwards. No words, but, in the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various

... steal, and fight, and swear, and plunge the dagger into the bosom of his nearest friend. No vice is too filthy, no crime too tragical for the drunkard. The records of our courts tell of acts committed under the influence of rum, which curdle the blood in our veins. Husbands butcher their wives; children slaughter their parents. Far the greater part of the atrocities committed in our land, proceed from its maddening power. "I declare in this public manner, and with the most solemn regard to truth," said Judge Rush, some years ago in a charge to a grand jury, ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society

... pronounced to be "a fardell of false reports, suggestions, and manifest lies." Its author and Page, the bookseller, were brought into the open market at Westminster, and their right hands were cut off with a butcher's knife and mallet. With amazing loyalty, Stubbs took off his cap with his left hand and shouted, ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield

... throng! Prince and beggar, sinner and saint, butcher and baker and candlestick maker, tinkers and tailors, and plowboys and sailors—all jostling along together. Here the counsel in his wig and gown, and here the old Jew clothes-man under his dingy tiara; here the soldier in his scarlet, and here ...
— Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... cocottes, and escaped convicts of all nationalities. At one end of the saloon is a bar, at the other a band. Dozens of tables are ranged around. Monte, faro, rouge-et-noir, are the games. A large proportion of the players are diggers in shirt-sleeves and butcher-boots, belts round their waists for bowie knife and 'five shooters,' which have to be surrendered on admittance. They come with their bags of nuggets or 'dust,' which is duly weighed, stamped, and sealed ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke

... came to ourselves, and saw him sitting in the porch looking at us. When he had considered us well, he advanced toward us, and laying his hand upon me, took me up by the nape of my neck, and turned me around, as a butcher would do a sheep's head. After having examined me, and perceiving me to be so lean that I was nothing but skin and bone, he let me go. He took up all the rest one by one, and viewed them in the same manner. The captain being ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous

... however, last more than two years. During these various changes—I cannot give the exact dates—this artist, on his way to glory, was forced to gain a living by the least aristocratic of occupations. If he did not go so far as Shakespeare in humility of profession (the English poet was a butcher's boy), he strangely stooped from that native nobility—great capacity,—which must yet have claimed, in his ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various

... you are! She has seven brothers and sisters, and four of them are growing boys, with appetites! The butcher and baker claim ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various

... eyes, your father will tell your mother that she should have gone also, but when he marks the havoc which you make with the substantial part of the meal, and sees that your appetite for dessert is twice as good as usual, he will reflect upon his butcher's and grocer's bills, and, considering what they would be with provision to make for two such voracious creatures, he will say, "No, Esmeralda, don't take ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne

... But that thou told'st me thou wouldst hunt the boar. O! be advis'd; thou know'st not what it is With javelin's point a churlish swine to gore, 616 Whose tushes never sheath'd he whetteth still, Like to a mortal butcher, ...
— Venus and Adonis • William Shakespeare

... still the little one's tongue seemed to be tied. They turned the corner, and went their way along Matilda's own street, where the light of afternoon was now fading, and the western sky was throwing a reflection of its own. Past the butcher's shop, and the post-office, and house after house; and still Matilda was silent, and her conductor did not speak, until they stopped before the little gate leading to the house, which was placed somewhat back from the road. At the gate ...
— What She Could • Susan Warner

... in the chamber—a black incarnation of caprice, wandering, investigating, flitting, flirting, feasting at his will, with rich variety of choice in feast, from the heaped sweets in the grocer's window to those of the butcher's back-yard, and from the galled place on your cab-horse's back, to the brown spot in the road, from which, as the hoof disturbs him, he rises with angry republican ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin

... are cut into lengths of four feet, and trimmed both as to branches and bark. An iron tool called a frow, which is not unlike a butcher's cleaver, is then used to split the log into thin strips, one edge of which is four or five times thicker than ...
— Richard of Jamestown - A Story of the Virginia Colony • James Otis

... necessary is this rod of mine to fright away all those listeners, who else would play at bo-peep with the honourable council, and be searching for keyholes and crannies in the door of the chamber, so as to render my staff as needful as a fly-flap in a butcher's shop." ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott

... born in London, in 1661. It is a characteristic circumstance that his name is not his own, except in the sense that it was assumed by himself. The name of his father, who was a butcher in the parish of St. Giles, Cripplegate, was Foe. His grandfather was a Northamptonshire yeoman. In his True Born Englishman, Defoe spoke very contemptuously of families that professed to have come over with "the Norman ...
— Daniel Defoe • William Minto

... we had access; but the shepherd, who had learned his craft on the Downs, said that the nuts grew there in such immense quantities as determined us to see them. Sitting on the felled ash under the shade of the hawthorn hedge, where the butcher-birds every year used to stick the humble-bees on the thorns, he described the route—a mere waggon track—and the ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies

... with an eruption all over his body and his mouth full of the most dangerously contagious patches. Two of us cornered him and explained to him in full why he should come in if only for twenty-four hours. He promised to be back next morning and disappeared. Another, a butcher in the same condition, put his wife, whom he had already infected, into the hospital, and in spite of every argument by all the members of the staff, went home to attend to his business—the selling of meat over the ...
— The Third Great Plague - A Discussion of Syphilis for Everyday People • John H. Stokes

... the ox bellowed "no!" So she shouted to the butcher:— "Pray butcher kill ox, ox won't drink water, Water won't quench fire, fire won't burn stick, Stick won't beat dog, dog won't bite kid, Kid won't go! I see by the moonlight 'Tis getting past midnight, And time kid and I were home An hour ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates

... our present ingenious Government takes precious good care that such dangerous persons as my father shall not be left in possession of a rifle or any other shooting-iron; and surely you will not butcher me? Come, father, be reasonable! You know well what I mean to become, and that the calling I have ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai

... the shirts and the dishcloths, which she hung to dry on a line; she carried the garbage down to the street every morning, and carried up the water, stopping at each landing to rest. And, dressed like a woman of the people, she went to the fruiterer's, the grocer's, the butcher's, her basket on her arm, bargaining, abusing, defending sou[*] by sou ...
— Short Stories Old and New • Selected and Edited by C. Alphonso Smith

... instigation of this black-robed believer in the Virgin. Congregations of worshippers in the dark-aisled church have listened to a fabulous description of my mission and character, until the barber would not cut my hair or the butcher sell me his meat! Many a mother has hurriedly called her children in and precipitately shut the door, that my shadow in passing might not enter and pollute her home. Perhaps a senorita, more venturesome, with her black hair hanging in two long plaits behind each shoulder, has run to her iron-barred ...
— Through Five Republics on Horseback • G. Whitfield Ray

... raccoon-skin with the fur on; and for this great cap his iron-gray hair, matted and unkempt, served as a fringe to keep the other tasselings in countenance. The hunting-shirt was belted at the waist, and in the belt was thrust a sheathless knife huge enough to serve a butcher's purpose. From two leather thongs crossed upon his shoulders hung the powder-horn and bullet-pouch; and these, with the knife and rifle, summed up ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... make most account of such meat as they may soonest come by and have it quickliest ready. Their food consisteth principally in beef, and such meat as the butcher selleth, that is to say, mutton, veal, lamb, pork, whereof the one findeth great store in the markets adjoining; besides souse, brawn, bacon, fruit, pies of fruit, fowls of sundry sorts, as the other wanteth it not at home by his own provision, which is at the best hand and commonly ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... away, and Bob Keeley made as rapid a departure as was consistent with the deep respect he felt for the 'Passon,' having extracted a promise from the butcher boy of the village, who was a friend of his, that if he were 'quick about it,' he would get a drive up to Badsworth and back again in the butcher's cart going there for orders, instead of ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli

... Exertions, having no other amusement; I wear seven Waistcoats and a great Coat, run, and play at cricket in this Dress, till quite exhausted by excessive perspiration, use the Hip Bath daily; eat only a quarter of a pound of Butcher's Meat in 24 hours, no Suppers or Breakfast, only one Meal a Day; drink no malt liquor, but a little Wine, and take Physic occasionally. By these means my Ribs display Skin of no great Thickness, & my Clothes have ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero

... itinerant butcher of doing double duty as a reporter, and found that he "was engaged by several editors to pick up bits of news for the press" as he went his daily rounds. "But this," I exclaimed, "is just what I don't want and can't allow. Now if you should drive in here some day and discover ...
— Adopting An Abandoned Farm • Kate Sanborn

... (flechier), with which trade the manufacture of bows, properly the business of the bowyer, was naturally combined. The frequency of the name in our own day might be alleged in proof of the ancient importance of the industry, but in most cases it is probably derived from flesher, a butcher. ...
— The Battaile of Agincourt • Michael Drayton

... pew, under the gallery, was void like Sturk's. These sudden blanks were eloquent, and many, as from time to time the dismal gap opened silent before their eyes, felt their thoughts wander and lead them away in a strange and dismal dance, among the nodding hawthorns in the Butcher's Wood, amidst the damps of night, where Sturk lay in his leggings, and powder and blood, and the beetle droned by unheeding, and no one saw him save the guilty eyes that gleamed back as the shadowy shape stole ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... one of the most vigorous and voluminous writers of the last decade of the seventeenth and the first quarter of the eighteenth centuries, was born in St. Giles parish, Cripplegate, in 1660 or 1661, and died near London in 1731. His father was a butcher named Foe, and the evolution of the son's name through the various forms of D. Foe, De Foe, Defoe, to Daniel Defoe, the present accepted form, did not begin much before he reached the age of forty. He was educated at the "dissenting school" of a Mr. Martin in Newington Green, ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... left when they were satisfied; it was little enough. He begged at cottages on his own account, sometimes; sitting up in the attitude of mendicancy till something was thrown to him. Occasionally, too, he stole fowls or raided a butcher's shop. Then Trotter and the Signor would disown him vociferously to the bereaved one, and hasten on to come up with him before he had eaten it all. He preferred being beaten to going hungry, so they never caught him till he had fed full. But what troubled ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon

... him, whispering in his ear, lest the guard behind might strike. He glanced aside at me, but with no response in the depths of his eyes, in which I could perceive only a dumb anguish of despair. Beyond him marched Grover, one time butcher at Harwich, a stocky, big-fisted fellow, with a ghastly sword wound, yet red and unhealed on his face, extending from hair to chin, his little pig eyes glinting ugly, and his lips cursing. The man beyond was a soldier, a straight, athletic fellow, with crinkly black beard, ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish

... guinea. He entered Chester with his "last shilling," which he paid for admission to the theatre, little thinking of provision for the night. Yet Munden, in later life, was a prudent, parsimonious man. At the close of the performance he fell in with a person who had been a butcher's apprentice in Brooks's Market, and who remembering young Joseph's antic tricks, gave him good cheer, and money for his return to London. On the road, necessity overtook him, when meeting a Warwickshire militia-man, who was marching to the town ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 534 - 18 Feb 1832 • Various

... it may sound, Spain is not a fanatic country. I know something about her, and declare that she is not, nor has ever been; Spain never changes. It is true that, for nearly two centuries, she was the she-butcher, La Verduga, of malignant Rome; the chosen instrument for carrying into effect the atrocious projects of that power; yet fanaticism was not the spring which impelled her to the work of butchery; another feeling, in her the predominant one, was worked upon—her fatal pride. It was by ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... were more affected than he by the circumstance of their having a Patterne in the Marines. But how then! We English have ducal blood in business: we have, genealogists tell us, royal blood in common trades. For all our pride we are a queer people; and you may be ordering butcher's meat of a Tudor, sitting on the cane-bottom chairs of a Plantagenet. By and by you may . . . but cherish your reverence. Young Willoughby made a kind of shock-head or football hero of his gallant distant cousin, and wondered occasionally that the fellow had been content to dispatch ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... all the ceremonies prescribed by their religion. Part of it was dressed for supper, after which a dispute arose between one of the negroes and Johnson, the interpreter, about the sheep's horns. The former claimed the horns as his perquisite, as he had performed the office of butcher, and Johnson disputed the claim. To settle the matter, Mr. Park gave a horn to each ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... of mess pork. Yet the recipients of these favours piqued themselves upon their good birth and high connexions, and would have felt themselves insulted if anyone had ventured to hint that they should visit, upon terms of equality, with the grocer or the butcher in the next street. ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent

... applying the most abusive epithets to him, I finally struck him. But all availed nothing; unlike the majority of his countrymen, the fellow was cold and passionless, even under insults and blows. I had provided myself with a sharp butcher's knife, which I carried in my sleeve, ready to plunge into his heart, had he offered to attack me in return; and thus I hoped to make it appear that I had slain him in self-defence. But his admirable coolness and self-possession ...
— Venus in Boston; - A Romance of City Life • George Thompson

... eyes were staring, and I could hardly be brought around. My Melissa wondered why I was out so late. "Oh, if you'd only come sooner," she said, "you could have helped us: a wolf broke into the folds and attacked the sheep, bleeding them like a butcher. But he didn't get the laugh on me, even if he did get away, for one of the slaves ran his neck through with a spear!" I couldn't keep my eyes shut any longer when I heard that, and as soon as it grew light, I rushed back ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... too in his cups, but somehow even his violence was humorous. The village butcher once was imprudent enough to remonstrate with him for drinking, while the drink was yet in him, and Mick acknowledged the good advice by unhooking a leg of mutton and belabouring him soundly, to the detriment of himself ...
— An Isle in the Water • Katharine Tynan

... delegate this most important business to a cook, but she had not the same eye for a tough goose or a poor fish, perhaps not the same backbone for a bargain, as a housewife used from childhood to these sorties. In some towns the butcher calls over night for orders. The baker's boy brings rolls before anyone is up, and hangs them outside the flat in one of two bags every household possesses. After the early breakfast either the mistress or the cook fetches what is required for ...
— Home Life in Germany • Mrs. Alfred Sidgwick

... Vernon,[16] the butcher Cumberland, Wolfe, Hawke, Prince Ferdinand, Granby, Burgoyne, Keppel, Howe, Evil and good, have had their tithe of talk, And filled their sign-posts then, like Wellesley now; Each in their turn like Banquo's monarchs stalk, Followers of Fame, "nine farrow"[17] ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron

... God! substitute some other victim. Make me not the butcher of my wife. My own blood is cheap. This will I pour out before Thee with a willing heart; but spare, I beseech Thee, this precious life, or commission some other than her husband ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... He entered it like a ghost, to the surprise of the widow, who wondered to see him abroad so late. "If you had only been here a little ago," said she, "you might have been of some use. For a wolf came tearing into the yard, scaring the cattle and bleeding them like a butcher. But he did not get off so easily, for the servant speared him in the neck." After hearing these words, Niceros felt that he could not close an eye, so he hurried away home again. It was now broad daylight, but when he came to the place where the clothes had been ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

... butcher, Mr. Lawrence," she announced portentously. "The last roast was a pound short, and his mutton-chops—any self-respecting sheep would refuse ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... do. One of them is a splendid girl—the butcher's daughter—such a good kind girl! If I were a clever woman I ought, of course, with the connexions Papa had, to be able to get an appointment for my son-in-law. But as it is I have not been able to do anything, and have brought them ...
— Father Sergius • Leo Tolstoy

... charge. The old chief had his tried charger equipped with a soft, pillow-like Indian saddle and a lariat. His old sinew-backed hickory bow was examined and strung, and a fine straight arrow with a steel head carefully selected for the test. He adjusted a keen butcher knife over his leather belt, which held a warm buffalo robe securely about his body. He wore neither shirt nor coat, although a piercing wind was blowing from the northwest. The youthful Two Strike had his favorite ...
— Indian Heroes and Great Chieftains • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman

... ragged, disreputable-looking fellow of middle age, in grimy and tattered clothes, whose head had been roughly bandaged by the policemen who brought him. He had been knocked down and kicked on the head by a butcher's cart-horse, it seemed, in Moorgate Street, and he was quite insensible. A very short examination showed that the case was nothing trivial, and McCarthy sent me to sit in his private room to wait lunch, while he gave the ...
— The Red Triangle - Being Some Further Chronicles of Martin Hewitt, Investigator • Arthur Morrison

... dead to life! The soldier lad; the market wife; Madam buying fowls from her; Tip, the butcher's bandy cur; Workmen carting bricks and clay; Babel passing to and fro On the business of a day Gone three thousand years ago— That you cannot; then be done, Put the goblet down again, Let the broken arch remain, Leave the dead men's ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 • Various

... on every frontier in Tennessee, was the log-cabin. A carpenter and a mason were not needed to build them—much less the painter, the glazier, or the upholsterer. Every settler had, besides his rifle, no other instrument but an axe, a hatchet, and a butcher-knife. A saw, an auger, a froe, and a broad-axe would supply a whole settlement, and were used as common property in the erection of the log-cabin. The floor of the cabin was sometimes the earth. No saw-mill was yet erected; and, if the means or leisure of the occupant authorized it, he split ...
— Life & Times of Col. Daniel Boone • Cecil B. Harley

... defeated, one after another, every great general of the Confederates except Stonewall Jackson. The Southerners felt that he held them as in the grasp of a vise; that this man could neither be arrested nor avoided. For all this he has been severely blamed. He ought not to be blamed. He has been called a butcher, which is grossly unjust. He loved peace; he hated bloodshed; his heart was generous and kind. His orders were to save lives, to save treasure, but at all costs to save his country—and he did ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter

... compete with each other and seek to draw away patients, parishioners or pupils; to exercise their callings mainly for the sake of financial gains; nor to regard as their own their skill, or inspiration, or learning. But as yet the butcher, the baker, the grocer, the banker, the manufacturer, the promoter, are not supposed to be on this plane. They are urged to compete, even to the extent of putting their rivals out of business, in defiance ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin

... said, "you're a butcher. You're a stench in the nostrils of humanity. You aren't fit ...
— Empire • Clifford Donald Simak

... name of Rav, "The butcher is bound to have three knives; one to slaughter with, one for cutting up the carcass, and one to cut away the suet. Suet being as unlawful for ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various

... that's a 'lost and found' department, 'suitable reward offered, an' no questions asked.' When I picks up a man's strays I hands 'em in if I can find him, or if I was so blame' hongry I couldn't resist ther temptation I might butcher one fer ther sake o' sinkin' my molars inter a tenderloin steak. But thet's ther wust a feller could say fer me. If ther critters aire yours, ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor



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