Glossary
Butcher Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential butcher terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key butcher vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in butcher training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- Band saw
- A saw used to cut through bone.
- Boning knife
- A knife for removing bones.
- Case
- The display refrigerator.
- Dry aging
- Aging meat in controlled conditions.
- Grind
- Processing meat into ground meat.
- Marbling
- Fat within muscle that adds flavor.
- Mesh glove
- A protective glove for cutting.
- Primal cut
- A large initial section of an animal carcass.
- Retail cut
- A cut sold to customers.
- Sanitize
- Reduce germs on surfaces.
- Shrink
- Lost product from trim or spoilage.
- Subprimal
- A smaller section of a primal.
- Trim
- Removing excess fat.
- USDA grade
- Quality grades such as Prime and Choice.
- Yield
- Usable meat after trimming.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Butcher practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Butcher training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.