From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishbutcherbutch‧er1 /ˈbʊtʃə $ -ər/ ●●○ S3 noun 1 
BODF[countable] someone who owns or works in a shop that sells meat2 → the butcher’s3 KILL[countable] someone who has killed someone else cruelly and unnecessarily, especially someone who has killed a lot of people4 → have/take a butcher’s
BODF[countable] someone who owns or works in a shop that sells meat2 → the butcher’s3 KILL[countable] someone who has killed someone else cruelly and unnecessarily, especially someone who has killed a lot of people4 → have/take a butcher’sExamples from the Corpus
butcher• He had been hired by a butcher in the Shambles.• Also patron of artists, butchers, glassworkers, notaries, painters, and surgeons.• And in Butcher Row there were 29 butchers, including a Master Butcher who features in the books.• He had a couple of hundred dollars on top of the dashboard, folded in butcher wrap stained with lamb-chop blood.• Many small independent butchers are closing down.• Therefore, we recommend having the butcher debone them whenever possible.• The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker.butcherbutcher2 verb [transitive] 1 DFTAto kill animals and prepare them to be used as meat2 KILLto kill someone cruelly or unnecessarily, especially to kill a lot of people3 informalSPOIL to spoil something by working carelessly That hairdresser really butchered my hair!→ See Verb tableExamples from the Corpus
butcher• Catholics, he preached, trained blind and furious zealots to butcher and scalp Protestants.• They decided Mr Newall was butchered downstairs and his wife in her bedroom.• The scent of dense green growth, irrigation mist, massive trees not butchered for their fodder, fattened, passive cattle.• Memories of the 1983 riots, when thousands of Tamils were butchered in Colombo, are lively.• Loi butchered it eagerly, first cutting off inch-thick steaks which we fried in soy sauce and oil and were delicious.• Each of his predecessors has been assassinated / butchered / knifed by one or more among those gathered in front of him.• And who did butcher those women?Origin butcher1 (1200-1300) Old French bouchier, from bouc “male goat” 