buttery

but·te·ry
B3U1T1T1E1R1Y4
UK/ˈbʌtəɹi/UK/ˈbʌtɹi/US/ˈbʌt(ə)ɹi/

adjective

Made with or tasting of butter.

“The old paper was a buttery color you no longer get.”

Less commonScrabble 12Word of the Day · May 5, 2026

Meanings

buttery1

adjectivebuttery (comparative butterier, superlative butteriest)

comparative butterier · superlative butteriest

  1. Made with or tasting of butter.

    The buttery-tasting cookie was actually made with margarine, but you couldn't tell by tasting it.

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

    The old paper was a buttery color you no longer get.

    2 more examples

    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.

    2015 September 5, Mark Diacono, “In praise of the Asian pear”, in The Daily Telegraph (Gardening), archived from the original on 12 Sep 2015, pages 1–2

    Most libraries have smooth, buttery legatos and exciting, natural-sounding spiccatos.

    2019, Gina Zdanowicz, Spencer Bambrick, The Game Audio Strategy Guide: A Practical Course
  3. informalMarked by insincere flattery; obsequious.

    He'll be nothing but enraptured with your buttery words .

    1997, Russell Wild, Games Bosses Play: 36 Career Busters Your Supervisor May Be Firing Your Way and How You Can Defend Yourself, page 100
    1 more example

    Dawson, for one, is on the right wavelength, goosing his buttery game-show host persona into a caricature of unctuous evil.

    2000, Scott von Doviak, Stephen King Films FAQ: All That's Left to Know About the King of Horror on Film
  4. abbreviationellipsiscomputer graphicsEllipsis of buttery smooth.

    (see title)

    2014 October 30, Greg Kumparak, “YouTube Can Now Play Videos At A Buttery 60 Frames Per Second”, in Tech Crunch
    5 more examples

    These include improved textures and character models plus a new buttery frame rate as the game gets boosted to 1080p resolution and animation of 60 frames per second. Stylish.

    2015 April 28, Jason Hidalgo, “Shout at the devil: DmC Devil May Cry Definitive Edition review”, in Reno Gazette Journal

    I dipped a few of the Nvidia-specific settings since I prefer smooth, buttery frame rate, but that’s impressive in itself given it’s the only game this year to make that happen.

    2015 November 19, Hayden Dingman, “Assassin’s Creed Syndicate PC review impressions: This gorgeous, mostly smooth game is no Unity”, in PC World

    For video, setting a higher frame rate, like 60 frames per second, means having the ability for getting nicer, buttery, silky-smooth, slow motion—if you're into that sort of thing.

    2018, Darrin Thompson, Set The Tone

    That frame rate is buttery. Your computer has an excellent graphics card, Masato

    2018, Dachima Inaka, Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks?

    So, if you're looking to play PC games with a buttery frame rate, these monitors are ready to deliver a great experience, and it gets even better when paired with Nvidia’s G-Sync or AMD’s FreeSync.

    2021 December 12, Mark Knapp, Matt Elliot, “Best 1080p Gaming Monitors 2021”, in IGN
nounbuttery (plural butteries)

plural butteries

  1. ScotlandA rowie.

    "We used to make 50 tins of butteries just for our Saturday trade, now it's about 20 tins, se we've seen a real shift which we've put down to an increased focus on health."

    2024 May 24, The Press and Journal, Inverness, page 28, column 2

buttery2

nounbuttery (plural butteries)

plural butteries

  1. A room for keeping food or beverages; a storeroom.

    ‘This is the storehouse and buttery of my company of the Guard,’

    1955 October 20, J[ohn] R[onald] R[euel] Tolkien, “Minas Tirith”, in The Return of the King: Being the Third Part of The Lord of the Rings […], New York, N.Y.: Ballantine Books, published December 1978, →ISBN, book V, page 39
    1 more example

    Pretty Pia from the buttery was a slut who was working her way through every knight in the castle.

    1999, George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings, Bantam, published 2011, page 458
  2. UKA room in a university where snacks are sold.

Buttery3

proper nounButtery (plural Butterys)

plural Butterys

  1. A surname from Anglo-Norman.

Synonyms & antonyms

adjectiveunpleasantly and excessively suave or ingratiating in manner or speech

adjectiveresembling or containing or spread with butter

Similar

nouna small storeroom for storing foods or wines

Broader
storeroomstorage roomstowage

Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.

Origin

buttery · adjective, noun

  1. Middle Englishbuttry
  2. Englishbuttery

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.

Full word history & related roots →

buttery · noun

  1. Late Latinbotāria
  2. Medieval Latinbuteria
  3. Old Frenchboterie
  4. Middle Englishboterie
  5. Englishbuttery

From Middle English boterie, from Old French boterie and Medieval Latin buteria, from Late Latin botāria, from a variant form of butta (“cask, bottle”). The form was probably influenced by butter.

Full word history & related roots →

Translations

Bulgarian маслен
  • маслен (maslen)made with or tasting of butter
Catalan mantegós
  • mantegósmade with or tasting of butter
Czech máslový, spíž
  • máslovýmade with or tasting of butter
  • spížroom for keeping food or beverages — see also storeroom
Dutch boterachtig
  • boterachtigmade with or tasting of butter
Finnish voinen
  • voinenmade with or tasting of butter
Hindi मखानी
  • मखानी (makhānī)made with or tasting of butter
Hungarian vajas
  • vajasmade with or tasting of butter
Irish butrach
  • butrachmade with or tasting of butter
Italian burroso
  • burrosomade with or tasting of butter
Polish maślany
  • maślanymade with or tasting of butter
Russian кладовка
  • кладовка (kladovka)room for keeping food or beverages — see also storeroom
Spanish mantecoso
  • mantecosomade with or tasting of butter
Swedish smörig
  • smörigmade with or tasting of butter

Rhymes & wordplay

Anagrams

Cite this entry
APA

buttery. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/buttery

MLA

“buttery.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/buttery. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “buttery,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/buttery.

Source: buttery on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.