Word.ws English Dictionary

butterfingers

Syllables: but·ter·fing·ers/ˈbʌtəˌfɪŋɡəz/US/ˈbʌtɚˌfɪŋɡɚz/

butterfingers noun: someone who tends to drop things; (more generally) someone who is clumsy or uncoordinated; a klutz.

Noun

butterfingers (plural butterfingers)

  1. (idiomatic, informal) Someone who tends to drop things; (more generally) someone who is clumsy or uncoordinated; a klutz.
    • I am such a butterfingers. That’s the third drink I’ve spilled today.
    • [A]t every bad attempt at a catch, and every failure to stop the ball, he launched his personal displeasure at the head of the devoted individual in such denunciations as—"Ah, ah!—stupid"—"Now butter-fingers"—"Muff"—"Humbug"—and so forth—ejaculations which seemed to establish him in the opinion of...1836 March – 1837 October, Charles Dickens, “How Mr. Winkle, instead of Shooting at the Pigeon and Killing the Crow, Shot at the Crow and Wounded the Pigeon; […]”, in The Posthumous Papers of the...
    Synonyms:
    butterfinger
  2. (idiomatic, informal) One's fingers which tend to drop things, or are clumsy or uncoordinated.
    • “I guess everyone’s got butterfingers around here,” Cole said with a sly smile. “Lucky for us, I’ve got fast reflexes.”2014, Scott Ciencin, chapter 1, in Luck Be a Lady […] (Charmed), New York, N.Y.: Simon Spotlight Entertainment, Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division, →ISBN, page 4
    • “That boy’s got butterfingers,” Connor went on. “That’s twice he’s dropped a tool. He’s got no place on a construction site.”2017, Cora Seton, chapter 9, in Issued to the Bride: One Marine, San Bernardino, Calif.: One Acre Press, →ISBN
  3. (idiomatic, informal) A tendency to drop things, or to be clumsy or uncoordinated.

Synonyms of butterfingers

Forms of butterfingers

pluralbutterfingers
alternative formbutter fingers

Origin of butterfingers

From butter + fingers (suggesting that someone is clumsy and drops things as if their hands are coated in slippery butter), from butterfingered.

Words formed from butterfingers

Questions about butterfingers

What does butterfingers mean?
Butterfingers means someone who tends to drop things; (more generally) someone who is clumsy or uncoordinated; a klutz.
What part of speech is butterfingers?
Butterfingers is a noun.
How do you pronounce butterfingers?
Butterfingers is pronounced /ˈbʌtəˌfɪŋɡəz/ (UK).
What is the plural of butterfingers?
The plural of butterfingers is butterfingers.

Words near butterfingers in the dictionary

  1. Butterfield
  2. Butterfields
  3. butterfin
  4. butterfinger
  5. butterfingered
  6. butterfingers
  7. butterfish
  8. butterfishes
  9. butterflied
  10. butterflier
  11. butterfliers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: butterfingers (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.

Last updated:

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

Cite this entry: “butterfingers.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/butterfingers. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.