Word.ws English Dictionary

Piccadilly butcher

Piccadilly butcher noun: a member of the regiment of Horse Guards, or "Royal Blues".

Noun

Piccadilly butcher (plural Piccadilly butchers)

  1. (UK, derogatory, obsolete, slang) A member of the regiment of Horse Guards, or "Royal Blues".
    • The mob in the meantime holloaed out, "No Corn Bill!" While they were proceeding in this manner, a cry was raised that "the Piccadilly butchers were coming."1875, The Law Magazine and Review, page 554
    • "In 1810, my father very nearly had his head cloven by a Piccadilly butcher when merely looking on to see Sir Francis Burdett taken to the tower."1913, Ash's Monthly, page 532

Forms of Piccadilly butcher

pluralPiccadilly butchers

Origin of Piccadilly butcher

In reference to their savage onslaught upon the crowd on the occasion of the arrest of Sir Francis Burdett at his house in Piccadilly.

Questions about Piccadilly butcher

What does Piccadilly butcher mean?
Piccadilly butcher means a member of the regiment of Horse Guards, or "Royal Blues".
What part of speech is Piccadilly butcher?
Piccadilly butcher is a noun.
What is the plural of Piccadilly butcher?
The plural of Piccadilly butcher is Piccadilly butchers.

Words near Piccadilly butcher in the dictionary

  1. piccadill
  2. piccadillies
  3. piccadillo
  4. piccadills
  5. piccadilly
  6. Piccadilly butcher
  7. Piccadilly butchers
  8. Piccadilly Circus
  9. Piccadilly weeper
  10. Piccadilly weepers
  11. piccadils

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Piccadilly butcher (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:

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