[f. prec. sb.]
1. trans. To slaughter in the manner of a butcher, or in a brutal and indiscriminate manner.
1562. Compl. of Church (Collier), 8. You, as sheep, were butchard doun.
1594. Shaks., Rich. III., I. ii. 67. Thou dost swallow vp this good Kings blood, Which his Hell-gouern’d arme hath butchered.
1621. Burton, Anat. Mel., Democr. 29. So many myriads … were butchered up with sword, famine, war.
1680. Otway, Caius Marius, 57. Matrons with Infants in their Arms are butcher’d.
1716. Addison, Freeholder, No. 10 (1751), 60. A couple of Moors, whom he had been butchering with his own Imperial Hands.
1818. Byron, Ch. Har., IV. cxli. He, their sire, Butcher’d to make a Roman holiday.
1850. Prescott, Mexico, I. 138. Nezahualcoyotl … saw his father butchered before his eyes.
b. fig. To ‘murder’ a reputation, an author’s language by blundering delivery, etc.
1647. Birkenhead, Assembly-Man (1662–3), 16. He Butcher’s a Text.
1677. in Maidment, Sc. Pasquils (1868), 244. For pelf Butcher’d thy fame estate, and last thyself.
1761. Churchill, Rosciad, Poems (1763), I. 28. Could authors butcher’d give an actor grace.
1827. Carlyle, Transl., Melechsala (1874), 113. As a modern critic butchers the defenceless rabble … who venture … into the literary tilt-yard.
1850. Whipple, Ess. & Rev. (ed. 3), II. 60. The text is not butchered by misprinting.
2. To torment, inflict torture upon (cf. sb. 2).
1642. T. Taylor, God’s Judgem., I. I. lii. 410. Turmoyled and butchered with their owne guilty consciences.
3. Peculiarly used with out.
1611. Tourneur, Ath. Trag., V. ii. 151. I’ll butcher out the passage of his soule That dares attempt to interrupt the blow.
1848. G. F. Ruxton, in Blackw. Mag., LXIII. 718/1. The offending weapon [i.e., an arrow] would have to be ‘butchered’ out.
