butterfingers

C2+ Topic:People & Society

US /ˈbʌtɚˌfɪŋɡɚz/ UK /ˈbʌtəˌfɪŋɡəz/ See IPA manual

Meanings

1

noun
a clumsy person who frequently drops things

Butterfingers dropped the tray of glasses again.

Thesaurus

Synonyms

1 noun · a clumsy person who... klutzfumbleroafbungler blunderer

Word family

Related forms butter fingers

Etymology

A compound of butter + fingers, jocularly suggesting fingers as slippery as if greased with butter, so that things slip from one's grasp; 19th-century coinage.

butere Old English

View etymology graph ->

Topics

People & Society

External links

# butterfingers

**Type:** Word
**Level:** C2+
**Part of speech:** noun
**IPA (US):** /ˈbʌtɚˌfɪŋɡɚz/
**IPA (UK):** /ˈbʌtəˌfɪŋɡəz/

## Meanings
1. a clumsy person who frequently drops things

## Examples
- Butterfingers dropped the tray of glasses again.

## Synonyms
- klutz
- fumbler
- oaf
- bungler
- blunderer

## Related Forms
- butter
- fingers

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: butere

## Etymology
A compound of butter + fingers, jocularly suggesting fingers as slippery as if greased with butter, so that things slip from one's grasp; 19th-century coinage.

## AI Etymology
Butterfingers is a compound of butter + fingers, jocularly suggesting fingers as slippery as if greased with butter, so that things slip from one's grasp; 19th-century coinage. The historical trail runs through butere in Old English. Morphologically, butterfingers is transparent: it is a compound of butter + fingers, jocularly suggesting fingers as slippery as if greased with butter, so that things slip from one's grasp. Used as a noun, butterfingers now means "a clumsy person who frequently drops things", so the present definition can be read against the older forms and meanings. The same lexical family is also visible in related forms such as butter and fingers. The modern word remains analyzable through its parts, which makes the semantic connection unusually direct.

## Topics
- People & Society

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