butcher boy

English

Pronunciation

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Noun

butcher boy (plural butcher boys)

1. (predominantly Australia) A woodlouse, any of various terrestrial crustaceans of the suborder Oniscidea.
   • 2006 October 17, Rivetting, “Butcher Boy/Pill Bug/Rolly Polly”, in Have you been Rivetted?‎^[1]:

     Today I stood on a butcher boy. He died. I feel bad.

   • 2018 June 25, “Pillbugs”, in Niles Biological, Inc.‎^[2]:

     Common names for woodlice vary throughout the English-speaking world. They include roly-poly, pill bug (usually applied only to the genus Armadillidium), sow bug, […] butcher boy, daddy gramfer / daddy gampfer (West Country), Granny Grey (South Wales), cheesybug (Kent), and cheeselog.

2. A man or boy who works for a butcher shop; a butcher's boy.
   • 1839, Thomas Webber, Bob Malton and the Butcher Boy‎^[3], page 6:

     Bob prick’d his lug and scratch’d his pate / For he was flushed with joy, / To think that he should be revenge’d / Upon the Butcher Boy.

3. (uncommon, slang, euphemistic) A male prostitute.
   • 1997, Ellis Hanson, “The Dialectic of Shame and Grace”, in Decadence and Catholicism, →OCLC, page 81:

     He had clearly become a satyr once again, as evidenced by the rosy-faced butcher-boy that Moore met upon visiting him. The word butcher-boy was, like telegraph-boy, a euphemism for a male prostitute

4. (US, baseball) Batting at a pitch with a short swing from a bunt position; a slash bunt, a slug bunt.
   • 2016 June 14, “The origin stories behind 11 uniquely strange baseball terms”, in MLB.com‎^[4], retrieved June 26, 2018:

     One of his [Casey Stengel's] more practical creations? The butcher boy, in which a batter would draw the infield in by squaring up to bunt ... only to quickly pull it back and take a short, downward swing at the ball.

Synonyms

• (woodlouse): See Thesaurus:woodlouse
• (male prostitute): rent boy, gigolo; see also Thesaurus:prostitute