butchery
/ˈbʊtʃəri
/noun (plural butcheries) [mass noun]
1The work of slaughtering animals and preparing them for sale as meat.If women were in the encampment they would be segregated and would prepare the meal, although slaughter and butchery were men's work....
- He learned butchery, hygiene, slaughtering, cutting and boning - in fact everything related to butchering - to become a Master Butcher.
- The slaughter and butchery of 200 cattle and the consumption of 40,000 kilos of beef, even if spread over a year or two, suggest the participation of many communities, perhaps from a whole clan or tribe.
Synonyms
meat selling, meat retailing
1.1 [count noun] British A slaughterhouse.The butcheries were filled with live chickens stuffed into cages and looking out as they waited on their little death row....
- A salmon butchery goes from bloody routine to living hell
- In May, the bodies of five women were found in a cold storage room (5 corpses found at butchery) at a Limpopo butchery.
Synonyms
abattoir, slaughterhouse;
British knacker's yard
archaic shambles, butcher-row
1.2 [count noun] British A butcher’s shop.Willem is up early six days a week, and buys his meat from wholesalers in Krugersdorp and Amalgam, and is ready to open the butchery at 6.30 am....
- It sells a range of fresh meat cuts through its award-winning butchery and a wide range of cooked meats, pies and cheeses through its delicatessen.
- Gilbert Grossett is the third generation of his family to run their butchery business in Dundee.
Synonyms
butcher's, butcher's shop, meat market, meat counter
2The savage killing of large numbers of people: the rebellions ended in butchery and defeat...
- I just hope this weekend's display of savage butchery and inter-communal violence wasn't staged for their benefit.
- And still all of you stick to your misconceptions of savage butchery.
- There is no escaping the fact of the Crusader's savage butchery - of Jews at home and of Muslims abroad.
Synonyms
slaughter, massacre, slaying, murdering, murder, mass murdering, homicide, blood shedding
Origin
Middle English (denoting a slaughterhouse or meat market): from Old French boucherie, from bouchier 'butcher'.