[f. BUTTER sb.1 + -INE.] An imitation butter manufactured from oleomargarine (one of the constituents of animal fat) churned up with milk. (By Act 50 & 51. Vict. xxix. ‘all substances, whether compound or otherwise, prepared in imitation of butter’ must after 1 Jan. 1888, be offered for sale under the name of Margarine.)
1874. [advertised in ‘The Grocer’ in March].
1878. E. A. Parkes, Man. Pract. Hygiene (ed. De Chaumont), 270, note. A substance from New York has lately made its appearance in the market under the name of butterine.
1881. Times, 5 April, 10/1. A substance which is called ‘butterine’ in commerce and oleo-margarine in laboratories.
1882. in Nature, XXV. 270. Oleo-margarine … is made into butterine by adding 10 per cent. of milk to it, and churning the mixture.
1887. Aberdeen Jrnl., 9 July, 5/1. The dairy farmers scored heavily against the butterinists … by securing the substitution of the word margarine for butterine in the bill for regulating the sale of butter.
