English
Verb
butter up (third-person singular simple present butters up , present participle buttering up , simple past and past participle buttered up )
( transitive , figuratively ) To flatter , especially with the intent of personal gain .
He takes every opportunity to butter up the boss.
2013 , Daniel Taylor, Danny Welbeck leads England's rout of Moldova but hit by Ukraine ban (in The Guardian , 6 September 2013)[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 / 讨好 (zh) ( tǎohǎo ) , 讨好 (zh) ( tǎohǎo ) , 奉承 (zh) ( fèngchéng ) , ( colloquial ) 拍馬屁 / 拍马屁 (zh) ( pāi mǎpì ) , 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
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Italian: lusingare (it)
Japanese: お世辞を言う ( おせじをいう, o-seji-o iu ) , 諂う ( へつらう, hetsurau )
Korean: 아첨하다 (ko) ( acheom-hada )
Kyrgyz: жасакерденүү ( jasakerdenüü ) , кошаматтануу ( koşamattanuu ) , кошамат кылуу ( koşamat kıluu ) , көңүл көтөрүү ( köŋül kötörüü ) , сооротуу (ky) ( soorotuu ) , жагуу (ky) ( jaguu ) , май төшөө ( may töşöö ) , бөйпөңдөө ( böypöŋdöö )
Norwegian: smiske
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, 2014 September 23