Word.ws English Dictionary

butterscotch

Syllables: but·ter·scotch/ˈbʌtəˌskɒtʃ/US/ˈbʌtɚˌskɑt͡ʃ/

butterscotch noun: a hard candy made from butter, brown sugar, syrup and vanilla.

butterscotch: a hard candy made from butter, brown sugar, syrup and vanilla
Image: Evan-Amos, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

butterscotch (usually uncountable, plural butterscotches)

  1. (usually) A hard candy made from butter, brown sugar, syrup and vanilla.
  2. (usually) A sauce or syrup made of similar ingredients.
  3. (usually) A light brown colour, like that of butterscotch candy.

Adjective

butterscotch (not comparable)

  1. Of a light brown colour, like that of butterscotch candy.
  2. Having the flavour of butterscotch.

butterscotch meaning in Thai

butterscotch in Thai

hard candy
บัตเตอร์สกอตช์ bàt-dtə̂ə-sà-gɔ́t
sauce or syrup made of similar ingredients
บัตเตอร์สกอตช์ bàt-dtə̂ə-sà-gɔ́t

Forms of butterscotch

pluralbutterscotches

Origin of butterscotch

From butter + scotch, with the second element deriving (not from scotch whiskey or Scotland, but) from Middle English scocchen (“to score, nick, cut”), in reference to how the candy is boiled and hardened and then usually scored to make breaking it apart easier. The word is usually said to have originally been a trademark of Parkinson's, who is claimed to have invented it.

Words formed from butterscotch

Questions about butterscotch

What does butterscotch mean?
Butterscotch means a hard candy made from butter, brown sugar, syrup and vanilla.
What is butterscotch in Thai?
Butterscotch in Thai is บัตเตอร์สกอตช์ (bàt-dtə̂ə-sà-gɔ́t). See Butterscotch meaning in Thai.
What part of speech is butterscotch?
Butterscotch can be a noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce butterscotch?
Butterscotch is pronounced /ˈbʌtɚˌskɑt͡ʃ/ (US).
What is the plural of butterscotch?
The plural of butterscotch is butterscotches.

Words near butterscotch in the dictionary

  1. butters one's bread on both sides
  2. butters out
  3. butters someone's biscuit
  4. butters the cony
  5. butters up
  6. butterscotch
  7. butterscotched
  8. butterscotches
  9. butterscotchlike
  10. butterscotchy
  11. Butterses

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: butterscotch (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-butterscotch.wav.

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