butt in

See also: buttin'

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU)

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Verb

butt in (third-person singular simple present butts in, present participle butting in, simple past and past participle butted in)

1. (idiomatic, informal) To join a conversation or situation in which one is not welcome or invited; to interject (connotes a rude or discourteous interruption).

   Hey, this is none of your business; don’t butt in!

   Forgive me for butting in.

   • 1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 125:

     That spurt of rage took Bradly in the midriff before he could control it. He was standing over Podson with such eminent threat in his bristling beard that Podson said sulkily, "Oh, all right, I don't want to butt in, if you feel like that about it."

2. (transitive) To join a queue not at the end, but in the middle.

Antonyms

• butt out

Derived terms

• buttinsky

Translations

to join conversation when not welcome

• Bulgarian: намесвам се (namesvam se)
• Dutch: onderbreken (nl), zich (nl) moeien (nl), zich (nl) inmengen (nl)
• French: ramener sa fraise (fr) (familiar), s’incruster (fr) (familiar)
• Galician: entrometer
• German: unterbrechen (de), sich einmischen
• Italian: intromettersi (it)
• Maori: kohiko
• Portuguese: intrometer-se, meter o nariz onde não é chamado, meter o bedelho em
• Russian: встрева́ть (ru) impf (vstrevátʹ), вкли́ниваться (ru) impf (vklínivatʹsja), вме́шиваться (не в своё де́ло) impf (vméšivatʹsja (ne v svojó délo))
• Spanish: meter baza
• Swedish: lägga sig i (sv)
• Thai: ยุ่ง (th) (yûng)
• Turkish: burnunu sokmak (tr), maydanoz olmak (tr)

to join a queue not at the end, but in the middle

• Galician: coarse
• Portuguese: furar fila
• Russian: вкли́ниваться (в о́чередь) impf (vklínivatʹsja (v óčeredʹ))
• Turkish: kaynak yapmak

Anagrams

• unbitt