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, informal) To flatter, especially with the intent of personal gain.

   He takes every opportunity to butter up the boss.

   • 1994, Quentin Tarantino, Roger Avary, Pulp Fiction, spoken by Jimmie (Quentin Tarantino):

     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.

   • 2004, Wes Anderson, Noah Baumbach, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, spoken by Steve Zissou (Bill Murray):

     Do you mind if I butter you up a little before I answer that question?

   • 2013 September 6, 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／讨好 (zh) (tǎohǎo), 奉承 (zh) (fèngchéng), (colloquial) 拍馬屁／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 ums Maul schmieren, schmeicheln (de)
• Hebrew: הֶחְמִיא (heẖmí)
• Hindi: मक्खन लगाना (makkhan lagānā)
• 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), 胡麻をする (goma wo suru)
• 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
• 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: smöra (sv), smickra (sv)
• Telugu: పొగడు (te) (pogaḍu), ఉబ్బివేయు (ubbivēyu), ఉబ్బించు (te) (ubbiñcu)

References

• “Butter up”, in BBC Learning English‎^[2], BBC, 2014 September 23
• “butter up v.” under “butter v.”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang, Jonathon Green, 2016–present