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buttery

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Etymology and origin of the English word buttery

Pronunciation

  • UK: /ˈbʌtəɹi/, /ˈbʌtɹi/[1]
  • US: /ˈbʌt(ə)ɹi/[1]

buttery1 storeroom for provisions

Confidence
Probable
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
c. 1384 a London English document
Borrowed from
Old French boterie via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Late Latin butta

Etymology

The word for the storeroom is inherited from Middle English boterie, also botrie,[2][3][4] borrowed from Old French boterie, the Anglo-Norman form, also buterie,[5][2][6] and partly borrowed from Medieval Latin buteria, also buttaria, frequent in British sources from the 12th century.[5] The Anglo-Norman word is recorded from 1177, for a room where provisions were kept and for the buttery as a department of a royal or noble household;[7] the OED takes its use in a surname recorded in 1205 as evidence of the Anglo-Norman rather than the English word.[5] The revised OED derives the Anglo-Norman and Latin words from Late Latin butta (“cask, bottle”) with the suffix that gave -ry,[5] the Oxford Dictionary of English from bot, a butt or cask,[6][8] and Etymonline through Late Latin botaria from bota, a variant of butta;[9] Hoad calls this origin probable, from the word that gave butt, a cask.[2][10] The American Heritage Dictionary and Merriam-Webster instead take boterie as an alteration of botelerie (Middle French bouteillerie), from botele (“bottle”), the source of bottle,[11][4][12] and Skeat called it a corruption of Middle English botelerie, a place for a butler.[13] The Shorter Oxford leaves both explanations open,[14] and Weekley noted that some forms point to butt and others, with Medieval Latin botelleria, to bottle.[15] Hoad records the older English word butlery from the 13th century.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A storeroom for provisions, especially ale and other drink: about 1384, in a London English document.[5] Etymonline dates the senses "place for storing liquor" and "room where provisions are laid up" to the late 14th century.[9]

Semantic evolution

The word first meant a store for liquor and was widened to provisions in general;[2][14][9] the OED finds the widening unsurprising but thinks it may have been helped by the unrelated butter.[5] Weekley compared the similar widening of larder and pantry.[15] From 1579 the word was used at universities, especially Oxford and Cambridge, for a room where students could buy food and drink,[5][16] a sense Collins labels British.[17] Between 1530 and 1660 the spirit of the buttery was an allusive name for strong drink.[5] By the late 19th century the sense of a pantry or larder was obsolete or dying out in the dialects of Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cheshire, Derbyshire and several southern counties,[18] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged labels it dialectal.[4]

Timeline

  • c. 1384 – a storeroom for provisions, especially ale and other drink.[5]
  • 1530 – the spirit of the buttery, strong drink (obsolete after 1660).[5]
  • 1579 – at universities, a room where students buy food and drink.[5][16]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A storeroom for liquors and other provisions.[4][17][5]
  2. (chiefly British) At some universities, a room where food and drink are supplied or sold to students.[17][4][5]
  3. (dialect) A pantry or larder.[4][18][5]

buttery2 like butter

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
1398 before 1398, Trevisa's translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus
Ultimate origin
Ancient Greek βούτυρον
Etymology tree of buttery2
inherited borrowed derived
Ancient Greek βοῦς (boûs)
Ancient Greek βούτυρον (boútūron)
Latin būtyrum
French beurre
English butter
English buttery
The journey of buttery2
From the same root · buttery2
English buttercup ← butter
English buttermilk ← butter

Etymology

The adjective meaning like butter is Middle English buttri,[19] formed from English butter + -y.[5][9][4][14][20] The noun butter is from Old English butere, an early borrowing from Latin būtȳrum, from Ancient Greek βούτυρον (boúturon).[9][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Containing butter, or like butter: before 1398, in Trevisa's translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus, which says that cow's milk is "lasse scharp and more buttry".[19][5]

Semantic evolution

By about 1450 a cookery book used the word of cheese that is soft like butter,[19][5] and before 1585 it was used figuratively of people or speech that were smooth and flattering.[5][16] Johnson (1755) defined it only as having the appearance or qualities of butter.[20] Later senses were "smeared with butter" (1747, in Hannah Glasse's Art of Cookery), "mellow", of sound or a voice (1864), "butter-coloured" (1865) and, of wine, "rich and creamy" (1979).[5] In Ireland and Cornwall the word formed dialect compounds such as buttery fingers, said of someone who lets things slip from the hand.[18] Green's Dictionary of Slang records it for "susceptible to flattery" from 1842, and in American slang for "bad" (campus slang, 1997–2000) and for "first-rate" (2000).[21] In Scotland the adjective became a noun, a buttery being a flaky bread roll (1899).[5]

Timeline

  • before 1398 – containing butter; like butter.[5][19]
  • c. 1450 – soft like butter in texture.[5][19]
  • before 1585 – of people or speech, flattering, ingratiating.[5]
  • 1747 – spread with butter.[5]
  • 1864 – of sound or a voice, mellow and smooth.[5]
  • 1865 – butter-coloured, yellow.[5]
  • 1899 – noun, a flaky bread roll.[5]
  • 1979 – of wine, rich and creamy.[5]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Like butter in taste, texture or look, or containing butter: a buttery pastry.[4][17][5]
  2. Spread with butter: a plate of buttery crumpets.[4][5]
  3. Of wine, having a rich, creamy flavour.[5]
  4. Of sound or a voice, mellow and smooth.[5]
  5. (informal) Too flattering; obsequious.[17][4][5]

Noun

  1. A flaky, fairly flat bread roll made with butter and lard.[5]

Word family

  • butteriness

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  3. ^ Stratmann, Francis Henry (1891), A Middle-English Dictionary, revised by Henry Bradley, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  8. ^ Soanes, Catherine; Stevenson, Angus, eds. (2004), Concise Oxford English Dictionary, 11th ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  10. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  11. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  12. ^ Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam
  13. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  14. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  15. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  16. ^ a b c Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
  17. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  18. ^ a b c Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  19. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  20. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  21. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Buttery.” Etymologically, 12 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/buttery. Accessed 13 Nov. 2026.

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