[f. BUTTER sb.1]
1. trans. To smear or spread with butter. Also, To cook or dish up with butter (see BUTTERED 2).
1496. [see BUTTERED ppl. a.].
1528. Tindale, Obed. Chr. Man, in Doctr. Treatises (1848), 277. They think that, if the bishop butter the child in the forehead, that it is safe.
1589. Darrell’s Accts., in H. Hall, Soc. in Elizabeth. Age (1886), 213. For … buttering ij cold chickens, vd.
1598. Shaks., Merry W., III. v. 8. If I be seru’d such another tricke, Ile haue my braines tane out and butter’d. Ibid. (1608), Lear, II. iv. 127. ’Twas her Brother, that in pure kindnesse to his Horse buttered his Hay.
1796. Mrs. Glasse, Cookery, v. 53. Butter the paper and also the gridiron.
1883. Jago, in Knowledge, 24 Aug., 120/2. Ship-biscuits … soaked in hot coffee and then buttered.
b. To close up with butter.
1807. Syd. Smith, Plymley’s Lett., Wks. 1859, II. 163/1. An Irish peasant fills the barrel of his gun full of tow dipped in oil, butters up the lock, buries it in a bog.
c. in proverbial expressions, as Fine words butter no parsnips. To know on which side one’s bread is buttered: see BREAD 2 f. To butter one’s bread on both sides: to be wasteful or luxurious. To have one’s bread buttered for life: to be well provided for. † To butter the cony: see quot. 1611.
1611. Cotgr., s.v. Ambezatz, Ayant faict Ambezatz, having buttered the connie; hauing had that chance that no wise man would nicke.
1645. Sacred Decretal, 5. Fair words butter no fish.
1821. Byron, Vis. Judgm., xcvi. His bread, Of which he buttered both sides.
1870. Lowell, Among my Bks., Ser. I. (1873), 358. Fine words, says our homely old proverb, butter no parsnips.
1885. D. C. Murray, First Pers. Sing., xx. (1886), 152. He told himself that in any case his bread was buttered for life.
2. fig. † a. See quot. 1725. b. To flatter lavishly, to bedaub with fulsome praise or compliment.
1700. Congreve, Way of World, Prol. (1866), 259. The squire that’s butter’d still is sure to be undone.
1725. New Cant. Dict., To butter, signifies also, to cheat or defraud in a smooth or plausible Manner.
1816. Scott, Antiq., xxxvii. 257. Butter him with some warlike terms—praise his dress and address.
a. 1845. Hood, Public Dinner, ii. Long speeches are stutter’d, And toasts are well butter’d.
1884. Sat. Rev., 5 July, 27/1. The Lord Chief Justice of England made a tour through America and generously buttered the natives.
† 3. slang. ‘To increase the stakes every throw or every game’ J. Obs.
1690. B. E., Dict. Cant. Crew, Butter, to double or treble the Bet or Wager to recover all Losses.
a. 1719. Addison, Freeholder, No. 40. Wks. (1821), 505. One of Mr. Congreve’s prologues, which compares a writer to a buttering gamester, that stakes all his winning upon one cast; so that if he loses the last throw, he is sure to be undone.
