From Greek 'boutyron' (cow-cheese) — Greeks used the word with contempt, since butter was barbarian food.
A pale yellow solid food made by churning cream, used as a spread and in cooking.
From Old English butere (butter), from Latin butyrum, from Greek boutyron (cow-cheese), a compound of bous (cow, ox) + tyros (cheese, curd). The Greek word may itself have been borrowed from a Scythian or Thracian source, since the Greeks and Romans generally considered butter a food of barbarians and northern peoples, preferring olive oil. Herodotus mentions the Scythians churning mare
The Greeks literally called butter 'cow-cheese' (bou-tyron). They and the Romans considered it a disgusting food of northern barbarians — Pliny the Elder wrote that butter was the food that most distinguished civilized nations from barbarians. Romans used it as a skin ointment, not a food