How to say "butcher" in Japanese
Choosing the right word
- 肉屋にくやnounCovers both the butcher's shop and the butcher as a person who sells meat. This is the usual everyday word: for buying meat or referring to a neighborhood meat seller, this is normally the word you want.
- nounA loanword covering the butcher as a person. It is less common than 肉屋 and appears mostly in stylized, borrowed, or specialized contexts; for everyday speech 肉屋 is usually the better choice.
- 屠殺人とさつにんnounRefers to a slaughterhouse worker rather than a meat-selling butcher. It is a sensitive word, and it is seldom the word you want for a shop butcher; use it only for the slaughtering occupation itself.
- 精肉商せいにくしょうnounA formal-sounding term for a butcher as a dealer in meat. It fits written or commercial contexts such as trade or business descriptions, not casual conversation, where 肉屋 is the natural choice.
- 屠るほふるgodan verb, transitive verbA verb, not a noun: 'to slaughter', with literary overtones, and by extension 'to massacre' or 'to butcher'. Use it for the action of killing and cutting up an animal, not for the person or shop.
For the person or shop that sells meat, 肉屋 is the everyday choice; 屠殺人 and 精肉商 name the trade in narrow or technical ways, 「ブッチャー」 is a rarer loanword, and 「屠る」 is the verb 'to slaughter'.
Usage comparisons are AI-assisted and cross-checked by multiple models; for study reference only
Japanese equivalents
See also
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