In common usage, a butter knife may refer to any non-serrated table knife designed with a dull edge and rounded point; formal cutlery patterns make a distinction between such a place knife (or table knife) and a butter knife. In this usage, a butter knife (or master butter knife) is a sharp-pointed, dull-edged knife, often with a sabre shape, used only to serve out pats of butter from a central butter dish to individual diners' plates. Master butter knives are not used to spread the butter onto bread: this would contaminate the butter remaining in the butter dish when the next pat of butter was served. Rather, diners at the breakfast, the luncheon, and the informal dinner table use an individual butter knife to apply butter to their bread. Individual butter knives have a round point, so as not to tear the bread, and are sometimes termed butter spreaders. If no butter spreaders are provided, a dinner knife may be used as an alternative.
Colloquially, bread knives are sometimes referred to as butter knives, though technically incorrect.
Other articles related to "butter knife":
... Further information Butter knife Butter knives have a dull cutting edge and are generally used for spreading ...
Famous quotes containing the words knife and/or butter:
“I loved. And a man will guard when he loves.
Their white-gowned democracy was my fair lady.
With her knife lying cold, straight, in the softness of her sweet-flowing sleeve.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)
“Strange goings on! Jones did it slowly, deliberately, in the bathroom, with a knife, at midnight. What he did was butter a piece of toast. We are too familiar with the language of action to notice at first an anomaly: the ‘it’ of ‘Jones did it slowly, deliberately,...’ seems to refer to some entity, presumably an action, that is then characterized in a number of ways.”
—Donald Davidson (b. 1917)