Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In archery, one of a pair of archers who shoot together at a target: as, when the leader has shot his first arrow his butty takes his place.
  • noun A comrade, chum, or partner.
  • noun Specifically, in English coal-mining, one who takes a contract, or is a partner in a contract, for working out a certain area of coal.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Mining) One who mines by contract, at so much per ton of coal or ore.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun mining A miner who works under contract, receiving a fixed amount per ton of coal or ore.
  • noun UK, New Zealand A sandwich, usually with a hot savoury filling in a breadcake. The most common are chips, bacon, sausage and egg.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a sandwich

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Shortened from buttered sandwich or bun etc. See -y.

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Examples

Comments

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  • "Researchers at Leeds University spent more than 1,000 hours testing 700 variants on the traditional bacon sandwich, which many Britons refer to as a bacon butty (eschewing the term sandwich, said to have been coined to honor the fourth Earl of Sandwich’s habit of eating meat between slices of bread around 1762)."

    - http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/11/world/europe/11bacon.html

    April 11, 2007

  • Great find, John! My favorite line from the article:

    "And so the formula evolved to establish the amount of force in the bite, expressed in newtons, and the level of noise, expressed in decibels, to make the perfect crunch."

    What a world. :-)

    April 11, 2007

  • And yet for all that science, bacon sandwiches still taste rather like butt.

    April 11, 2007

  • mmmmm... bacon...

    I thought they were bacon sarnies, and still prefer the name, nyt notwithstanding.

    April 11, 2007

  • In Wales, pal or mate. A term of endearment. Like buddy in the US, but I wouldn't presume to state a connection.

    May 1, 2008

  • See also an excellent conversation on teeth.

    August 1, 2008

  • an example of its Welsh meaning:

    'What was that you was telling my butty of Cath Pendry yesterday?'

    'What about her?'

    -Powell's "Valley of Bones"

    May 14, 2009

  • A butty is also a narrow boat with no engine. They may attach several butties behind a working narrow boat. They used them in the UK, for carrying such things as coal, stones, newsprint (paper for the newspaper industry).

    January 3, 2013

  • We relaxed there about an hour, eating bacon butties, feeding the ducks, drinking huge amounts of tea and discussing hare-brained plans for the future of Happy Go Lucky.
    Marie Browne, Narrow Margins (Mid-Glamorgan: Accent Press Ltd., 2009)

    November 3, 2015