Butchered

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Meat that has been slaughtered and prepared for consumption ; a task performed very badly or destroyed in quality
2. The action of killing and cutting up animals for food ; an effort that has been spoiled or poorly done
3. Animal flesh that has been cut up and readied for eating ; a project or work that has been botched or badly damaged

Etymology: The verb "butchered" is simply the past tense and past participle of "butcher," so its story is really the story of the noun behind it. That noun began as a word for a goat-slaughterer. In Old French, "bouchier" was built from "bouc," meaning "goat," which passed into Medieval Latin as "buccus," meaning "he-goat." Before that it came from a Frankish word, "bukk," and ultimately from a Proto-Germanic root that meant "male goat" or "male deer." English borrowed the word in Middle English as "bocher" and "boucher," and the goat-killing sense gradually broadened to cover the slaughter of animals generally. The verb's sense of spoiling a job came later, and it followed the same logic as the noun. A butcher hacks at meat clumsily when he lacks skill, so the word came to describe any clumsy, bungled work, such as a botched speech or a ruined recipe. The meaning moved from the slaughterhouse to any task carried out with crude, destructive handling.

Synonyms: mutilated, slaughtered, murdered, destroyed, ruined

Antonyms: saved, rescued, preserved, protected, spared