buttinsky

English

WOTD – 1 April 2023

Etymology

From butt in (“to join a conversation or situation in which one is not welcome or invited, interject”) +‎ -sky (a variant of -ski (suffix added to a word, name, or phrase to invoke Russianness, Polishness, or a more general Slavicness)), humorously modelled after Russian surnames, and originally and often used in the form of a surname.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /bʌˈtɪnski/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /bʌˈtɪnski/, [-ˈɾɪn-]
• Hyphenation: butt‧in‧sky

Noun

buttinsky (plural buttinskys or buttinskies) (originally US, informal)

1. (derogatory) One who is prone to butt in, interrupt, or get involved where they are not welcome; a busybody. [from early 20th c.]

   Synonyms: butterinsky, kibitzer, meddler, (Britain) nosey parker, (Australia, New Zealand, informal) stickybeak, (woman, chiefly in Jewish contexts) yenta

   I wish I had never met that nosy buttinsky!

   • 1922, Sinclair Lewis, chapter XX, in Babbitt, New York, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace and Company, →OCLC, section I, page 252:

     Well, all right then! If you think I'm a buttinsky, then I'll just butt in!

   • 1933, Dorothy L[eigh] Sayers, “Murder Must Advertise. Chapter 4: Remarkable Acrobatics of a Harlequin.”, in The Five Red Herrings (Suspicious Characters): And Murder Must Advertise, Garden City, N.Y.: Nelson Doubleday, →OCLC, page 357:

     "Shut up, Garrett. I never," said Mr. Tallboy, extricating himself from Garrett's grasp and giving him a playful punch in the wind, "in my life, met with such a bunch of buttinskis as you are in this department. Nothing is sacred to you, not even a man's business correspondence."

   • 1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter V, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC, page 50:

     It is never pleasant for a man of sensibility to find himself regarded as a buttinski and a trailing arbutus, and it was thus, I could see at a g., that Wilbert Cream was pencilling me in.

2. (telecommunications) A robust portable one-piece telephone instrument with clips, used by technicians and lines staff for testing telephone circuits or making a temporary connection to a telephone line.

   Synonym: butt set

Alternative forms

• buttinski

Related terms

• butterinsky

Translations

one who is prone to butt in, interrupt, or get involved where they are not welcome — see busybody

telephone instrument

• Finnish: asentajapuhelin
• Macedonian: please add this translation if you can

See also

• back-seat driver
• encroacher
• gatecrasher
• interloper
• intruder
• marplot
• peeping tom
• persona non grata
• snoop
• snooper

 

Further reading

• “buttinsky, n.”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present, reproduced from Stuart Berg Flexner, editor in chief, Random House Unabridged Dictionary, 2nd edition, New York, N.Y.: Random House, 1993, →ISBN.
• “buttinsky, n.”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.