butter

noun

ˈbə-tər How to pronounce butter (audio)
Definition of butternext
as in flattery
excessive praise a junior exec who was laying on the butter so thickly that her colleagues were ready to gag

Synonyms & Similar Words

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for butter
  1. flattery
  2. praise
  3. soft soap
  4. sweet talk
  5. adulation
  6. acclaim
Noun
  • Told that imitation is the highest form of flattery, Steele guffaws.
    — Dana O’Neil, CNN Money, 21 Aug. 2026
  • Scam Buster is a bot that will reply to scammers in your inbox, placating them with the same social engineering tactics that scammers use, such as impersonation, flattery, and urgent messaging.
    — Kim Key, PC Magazine, 8 Aug. 2026
Definition of flattery
Noun
  • There has been widespread praise about the upward arc of Thieneman’s growth.
    — Dan Wiederer, New York Times, 30 Aug. 2026
  • The lawsuit says the decision was unlawful, unsupported by facts and inconsistent with the military’s past praise of Claude.
    — Reuters, NBC news, 28 Aug. 2026
Definition of praise
Noun
  • People should wash any skin that comes into contact with the slurry with water and soft soap, before using a hand cream to avoid dryness and cracking.
    — Lauren Penington, The Denver Post, 2 Sep. 2024
  • Founder and creative director Joy Cho’s lifestyle brand offers whimsical products, spanning bandages to soft soap, as well as regular editorial content online.
    — Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 31 Mar. 2021
Definition of soft soap
Noun
  • Really, what writer, no matter how detached from their past, could resist that kind of sweet talk?
    — Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 14 Aug. 2026
  • Watch an encounter full of sweet talk, gaslighting and tension here.
    — Georg Szalai, HollywoodReporter, 14 Feb. 2026
Definition of sweet talk
Noun
  • Djokovic will have cheers about as loud as the ones that will be heard for the Americans Shelton and Fritz, the type of adulation that often fizzles before the ultimate prize.
    — Ava Wallace, New York Times, 23 Aug. 2026
  • What might her bandmate Daniela Avanzini have to say in a song about their past year of adulation and never-ending scrutiny?
    — Craig Jenkins, Vulture, 21 Aug. 2026
Definition of adulation
Noun
  • For modern audiences, this scene likely evokes the imaginative world of Toy Story, the long-running film franchise about the secret lives of children’s toys, which launched to great acclaim in 1995 and recently released its fifth installment.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 28 Aug. 2026
  • Kusama represented Japan at the 1993 Venice Biennale, becoming the first female artist to solely represent Japan at the event, and the accumulation of her work was met with acclaim.
    — Jason P. Frank, Vulture, 27 Aug. 2026
Definition of acclaim
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Phrases Containing butter

Browse Nearby Words

butted (on or against)
butter
buttered up
See all Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Butter.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/butter. Accessed 2 Sep. 2026.

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More from Merriam-Webster on butter

Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about butter

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