butter up
"butter-up" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“butter up” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 9
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To flatter, especially with the intent of personal gain.
Corpus desk
Index EN-butter-up · butter up · English
butter up · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "B" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | butter up |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 9 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “butter up” in English
Rare enough to double-check
butter up is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To flatter, especially with the intent of personal gain.".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for butter up, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.
Our source data has no etymology on file for this entry, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct English form is butter up, spelled B-U-T-T-E-R- -U-P.
Definition
- 1To flatter, especially with the intent of personal gain.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how butter up appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
He takes every opportunity to butter up the boss.
I'm not a cobb of corn, so you can stop butterin' me up. I don't need you to tell me how good my coffee is.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.