Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.

"BUTTERCUPS" is a plural of: buttercup. |
Date "BUTTERCUPS" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1861. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Literature | Buttercups So called because they were once supposed to increase the butter of milk. No doubt those cows give the best milk that pasture in fields where buttercups abound, not because these flowers produce butter, but because they grow only on sound, dry, old pastures, which afford the best food. Miller, in his Gardener's Dictionary, says they were so called "under the notion that the yellow colour of butter is owing to these plants." Source: Brewer's Dictionary. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
Crosswords: BUTTERCUPS |
| English words defined with "BUTTERCUPS": apocarpous ♦ Caltha palustris, cowslip ♦ kingcup ♦ lesser celandine ♦ marsh marigold, May blob, meadow bright ♦ pilewort ♦ Ranunculus ficaria ♦ water dragon. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "BUTTERCUPS": Forget-me-nots of the Angels. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Lyrics | Watching buttercups cup the light (Flaming; performing artist: Pink Floyd) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
![]() | If flowers have a language as hath often times been said, I wonder if the buttercups would cry aloud for bread. Credit: Library of Congress. | ![]() | Williamsburg, Virginia. Buttercups I. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
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| "Irises and Buttercups" by Stephanie Summerfield Commentary: "These are irises with buttercups in the background." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. |
| "BUTTERCUPS" is generally used as a noun (plural) -- approximately 88.24% of the time. "BUTTERCUPS" is used about 34 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (plural) | 88.24% | 30 | 63,341 |
| Lexical Verb (-s form) | 11.76% | 4 | 175,879 |
| Total | 100.00% | 34 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "BUTTERCUPS" (pronounced bu"terku'ps) |
| 4 | -k u' p s | backups, checkups, hookups, linkups, markups, pickups, shakeups. |
| 3 | -u' p s | buildups, cleanups, closeups, coverups, grownups, hangups, holdups, lineups, pushups, setups, startups. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "b-c-e-p-r-s-t-t-u-u" | |
-1 letter: buttercup. | |
-2 letters: cutpurse. | |
-3 letters: becrust, becurst, butters, curtest, cutters, precuts, putters, scutter, sputter. | |
-4 letters: brutes, burets, buster, butter, buttes, bututs, cruets, cruset, cubers, curets, cutest, cutter, cutups, eructs, erupts, precut, purest, pursue, putter, rebuts, rectus, recuts, spruce, superb, suture, truces, truest, tubers, uterus, utters. | |
-5 letters: brute, buret, burps, burse, burst, butes, butte, butts, butut, crept. | |
| Words containing the letters "b-c-e-p-r-s-t-t-u-u" | |
+4 letters: subtherapeutic. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)42 55 54 54 45 52 43 55 50 53 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references)-... ..- - - . .-. -.-. ..- .--. ... |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01000010 01010101 01010100 01010100 01000101 01010010 01000011 01010101 01010000 01010011 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)B U T T E R C U P S |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)0042 0055 0054 0054 0045 0052 0043 0055 0050 0053 |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)36555454395237555053 |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Modern 4. Images: Slideshow | 5. Images: Photo Album 6. Images: Digital Art 7. Usage Frequency 8. Rhymes | 9. Anagrams 10. Orthography 11. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.