Word.ws English Dictionary

buttinsky

Syllables: butt·in·sky/bʌˈtɪnski/US/bʌˈtɪnski/

buttinsky noun: one who is prone to butt in, interrupt, or get involved where they are not welcome; a busybody.

Noun

buttinsky (plural buttinskys or buttinskies)

  1. (derogatory, informal) One who is prone to butt in, interrupt, or get involved where they are not welcome; a busybody.
    • I wish I had never met that nosy buttinsky!
    • Well, all right then! If you think I'm a buttinsky, then I'll just butt in!1922, Sinclair Lewis, chapter XX, in Babbitt, New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and Company, →OCLC, section I, page 252
  2. (informal) A robust portable one-piece telephone instrument with clips, used by technicians and lines staff for testing telephone circuits or making a temporary connection to a telephone line.
    Synonyms:
    butt set

Synonyms of buttinsky

All synonyms of buttinsky

Forms of buttinsky

pluralbuttinskys
pluralbuttinskies
alternative formbuttinski

Origin of buttinsky

From butt in (“to join a conversation or situation in which one is not welcome or invited, interject”) + -sky (a variant of -ski (suffix added to a word, name, or phrase to invoke Russianness, Polishness, or a more general Slavicness)), humorously modelled after Russian surnames, and originally and often used in the form of a surname.

Questions about buttinsky

What does buttinsky mean?
Buttinsky means one who is prone to butt in, interrupt, or get involved where they are not welcome; a busybody.
What part of speech is buttinsky?
Buttinsky is a noun.
How do you pronounce buttinsky?
Buttinsky is pronounced /bʌˈtɪnski/ (UK).
What is the plural of buttinsky?
The plural of buttinsky is buttinskys.

Words near buttinsky in the dictionary

  1. buttings
  2. Buttington
  3. buttinski
  4. buttinskies
  5. buttinskis
  6. buttinsky
  7. buttinskys
  8. buttjob
  9. buttjobs
  10. Buttke
  11. Buttkes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: buttinsky (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-buttinsky.wav.

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