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View synonyms for

butter up

verb

  1. tr, adverb to flatter
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged†2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


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Idioms and Phrases

Excessively praise or flatter someone, usually to gain a favor. For example, If you butter up Dad, he'll let you borrow the car . This term transfers the oily, unctuous quality of butter to lavish praise. [c. 1700]
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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

Almost every coach or general manager butters up the people who are signing his paychecks.

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Instead, they were hearing Silver butter up every Democratic club in the county.

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The con works like this: Victims are buttered up by the scammer for weeks and even months to gain the victim’s trust.

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Electric and gas utilities have used money collected from customers to lobby lawmakers, butter up regulators, and slow the shift to clean energy.

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At the center: six cinnamon rolls that a candidate alleged had been used to butter up voters during the tight mayoral race in October.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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