butter up

English

Verb

butter up (third-person singular simple present butters up, present participle buttering up, simple past and past participle buttered up)

1. (transitive, figuratively) To flatter, especially with the intent of personal gain.

   He takes every opportunity to butter up the boss.

   • 6 September 2013, Daniel Taylor, “Danny Welbeck leads England's rout of Moldova but hit by Ukraine ban”, in The Guardian‎^[1]:

     Joe Hart finished the night without a single grass stain on his kit and it was just a surprise the team did not butter up their goal difference even more once Welbeck had clipped in Lambert's through-ball five minutes into the second half.

Translations

to flatter

• Arabic: تَمَلَّقَ‎ (tamallaqa)
• Bulgarian: лаская (bg) (laskaja)
• Catalan: afalagar (ca), (archaic) fer lo bus
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 討好 (zh), 讨好 (zh) (tǎohǎo), 奉承 (zh) (fèngchéng), (colloquial) 拍馬屁 (zh), 拍马屁 (zh) (pāimǎpì)

• Czech: mazat někomu med kolem huby
• Dutch: vleien (nl)
• Finnish: imarrella (fi)
• French: flatter (fr), caresser dans le sens du poil (fr)
• German: Honig um den Bart schmieren, schmeicheln (de)
• Interlingua: adular

• Italian: lusingare (it)
• Japanese: お世辞を言う (おせじをいう, o-seji o iu), 諂う (ja) (へつらう, hetsurau)
• Korean: 아첨하다 (ko) (acheom-hada)
• Kyrgyz: жасакерденүү (jasakerdenüü), кошаматтануу (qoşamattanuu), кошамат кылуу (qoşamat qıluu), көңүл көтөрүү (qöñül kötörüü), сооротуу (ky) (soorotuu), жагуу (ky) (jağuu), май төшөө (may töşöö), бөйпөңдөө (böypöñdöö)
• Norwegian: smiske
• Polish: słodzić (pl) impf, podbijać bębenka (pl) impf, podbić bębenka pf
• Portuguese: bajular (pt)
• Russian: льстить (ru) impf (lʹstitʹ), ума́сливать (ru) n (umáslivatʹ)
• Spanish: lisonjear (es), (archaic) hacer el buz, (colloquial) hacer la pelota, incensar (es)
• Swedish: smickra (sv)
• Telugu: పొగడు (te) (pogaḍu), ఉబ్బివేయు (ubbivēyu), ఉబ్బించు (te) (ubbiñcu)

References

• “Butter up”, in BBC Learning English‎^[2], BBC, 23 September 2014