butler

Pluralbutlers

Formsbutlers, butlering, butlered

1. 1
   nouncountable

   The head male servant of a household, who manages the other staff, receives guests, directs the serving of meals, and provides various personal services.

   The butler took our coats and showed us into the drawing room.

   She inherited the estate along with its cook, its gardeners, and an elderly butler who had run the house for decades.

   Similarmajordomo, steward

   Note

   Here the keeper of the wine has risen to the head of the house, and the cellar duty has grown into a whole staff to manage. Baldwyn Dyke Acland's Filibuster (1929) shows the ranking at the door: one butler and three flunkeys greet a single caller, and the bowler goes to the butler while the cane and gloves go to the men below him.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A man employed as someone's personal attendant; a valet.

   The senator's butler laid out his suit and packed his bags for the trip.

   He traveled with a butler who shaved him each morning and kept his wardrobe in order.

   Similarvalet, manservant, attendant

3. 3
   nouncountable

   A male servant responsible for the wines and liquors kept in a household.

   The butler went down to the cellar for another bottle of claret.

   Every bottle that left the cellar was recorded in the butler's ledger.

   Note

   This is the duty that gave the job its name. The word came through Old French buttiler, the officer in charge of wine, from Medieval Latin botellārius, built on bottle: the first butler was the keeper of the bottles. Bottler is put together from the same pieces, bottle plus -er, and so is a near twin that stayed with bottles while butler moved into the household.

4. 4
   verbintransitive

   To serve out wine or liquor, or more generally to act in a butler's place.

   Two students were hired to butler at the reception, keeping every glass filled.

   For one summer he butlered at a country house, pouring the wine at dinner.

   Similarserve

   Note

   The noun works as a verb too, and a regular one: butlers, butlering, butlered. It shares the job with buttle, a shorter verb of the same meaning, and both can be used of anyone who pours and serves for an occasion, not only a butler by trade.

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