Killing and cutting up animals for meat, or doing something in a clumsy, destructive way.
From Middle English 'butcher,' from Old French 'bouchier,' possibly from 'bouc' (goat). The figurative meaning (doing something badly) developed by the 1600s.
When people say someone is 'butchering' a song or language, they're comparing bad performance to hacking at meat—it's a surprisingly violent metaphor we use every day for mild mistakes!
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