Word.ws English Dictionary

butter up

butter up verb: to flatter, especially with the intent of personal gain.

Verb

butter up (third-person singular simple present butters up, present participle buttering up, simple past and past participle buttered up)

  1. (figuratively, informal, transitive) To flatter, especially with the intent of personal gain.
    • He takes every opportunity to butter up the boss.
    • I'm not a cobb of corn, so you can stop butterin' me up. I don't need you to tell me how good my coffee is.1994, Quentin Tarantino, Roger Avary, Pulp Fiction, spoken by Jimmie (Quentin Tarantino)

butter up meaning in Hindi, Telugu and Arabic

butter up in Hindi

to flatter
मक्खन लगाना makkhan lagānā

butter up in Telugu

to flatter
పొగడు pogaḍu, ఉబ్బివేయు ubbivēyu, ఉబ్బించు ubbiñcu

butter up in Arabic

to flatter
تَمَلَّقَ tamallaqa

Synonyms of butter up

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of butter up

Forms of butter up

third-person singular presentbutters up
present participlebuttering up
past participlebuttered up
pastbuttered up

Origin of butter up

Compare typologically Russian ума́сливать (umáslivatʹ) (< ма́сло (máslo)).

Questions about butter up

What does butter up mean?
Butter up means to flatter, especially with the intent of personal gain.
What is butter up in Hindi?
Butter up in Hindi is मक्खन लगाना (makkhan lagānā). See Butter up meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is butter up?
Butter up is a verb.
What is the past tense of butter up?
The past tense of butter up is buttered up.

Words near butter up in the dictionary

  1. butter the cony
  2. butter tofu
  3. butter tooth
  4. butter tree
  5. butter trees
  6. butter up
  7. Butter Week
  8. butter will not melt in someone's mouth
  9. butter won't melt in someone's mouth
  10. butter would not melt in someone's mouth
  11. butter wouldn't melt in someone's mouth

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: butter up (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-butter up.wav.

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