a. and adv. [f. BUTCHER sb. + -LY.]
A. as adj. Like or characteristic of a butcher. Said of persons or their actions. lit. and fig.
1513. More, Hist. Rich. III., 37. He … would haue appointed that bocherly office to some other then his owne borne brother.
1528. Roy, Sat. (1871), 59.
| But they are constrayned to croutche | |
| Before this butcherly sloutche. |
1683. Evelyn, Mem. (1857), III. 192. Lord Russell was beheaded … the executioner giving him three butcherly strokes.
1720. De Foe, Capt. Singleton, viii. (1840), 145. The man … came to be so butcherly and rude, as to shoot at our men.
1826. Southey, Lett. (1856), III. 537. The … consequence would be division, anarchy, and butcherly civil wars.
¶ Of or connected with physical torture.
1571. Ascham, Scholem., I. (Arb.), 26. Take wholly away this butcherlie feare in making of latines. Ibid., 101. That boocherlie feare.
† B. as adv. In the manner of a butcher; brutally, cruelly, grossly. Obs.
1563–87. Foxe, A. & M., II. 363. They … understood him butcherly—that he would cut out lumps … out of his body.
a. 1603. T. Cartwright, Confut. Rhem. N. T. (1618), 421. Our brethren whose bloud you haue butcherly shed.
1678. N. Wanley, Wonders, II. xx. § 5. 126/1. He found his Wife most butcherly mangled.
Hence Butcherliness.
1755. in Johnson; and in mod. Dicts.
1864. Alex. Russel, Salmon, 151. Its [night-leistering’s] odiousness to eyes unaccustomed to its beauties and natures unhardened to its butcherliness.
1864. S. J. Stone, Himálayas, 230. An unconquerable disgust at my own butcherliness comes over me when I stand over a noble animal that has been slain by my own hand.
