butcherly

comparative more butcherly · superlative most butcherly

1. Like a butcher; characterised by slaughter, savage.

   She had not realised how butcherly the severed vessels would look, and she had not reckoned with the horrid halitus of blood, which steamed to her nostrils under the blazing sun.

   1932, Dorothy L. Sayers, chapter 1, in Have His Carcase

   1 more example

   Alexander comming to the Ocean of India, cast in favour of Thetis many great rich vessels of gold into the Sea, replenishing moreover her Altars with a butcherly slaughter, not onely of innocent beasts, but of men[…].

   1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 12, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC

comparative more butcherly · superlative most butcherly

1. obsoleteLike a butcher; cruelly, brutally.