butterfingers

butterfingers

Someone who is clumsy and often drops things or else fails to catch something. I dropped another plate! I'm such a butterfingers today. Coach, don't put that butterfingers Jimmy in the outfield!

have butterfingers

To be clumsy, usually momentarily, by dropping or failing to catch something. I dropped another plate! I guess I just have butterfingers today. Coach, don't put Jimmy in the outfield—he has butterfingers!
See also: butterfingers, have
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

have (or be a) butterfingers

be unable to catch deftly or hold securely.
This phrase comes from the idea that hands covered with butter will be slippery, making holding on to anything difficult. There was also a dialect sense of ‘unable to handle anything hot’, as if your fingers were made of melting butter. Butterfingers! is often jeeringly shouted at someone who has failed to catch a ball in a game.
See also: butterfingers, have
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary
See also:
  • have butterfingers
  • klutz
  • klotz
  • sprinkle on
  • sprinkle onto (someone or something)
  • foozle
  • ham-fisted
  • hack (something) to bits
  • hack (something) to smithereens
  • hack to
References in periodicals archive
That's why the cover is important, Even the best mechanics get butterfingers every now and then.
BUTTERFINGERS J Reds No.1 Reina sees the ball go over the line after his fumble LIV AND LET FLY J Liverpool hero Luis Suarez gets a pat on the head from skipper Steven Gerrard, top, after firing in their crucial goal, left, and Hearts manager John McGlynn, above, has his opportunity to celebrate after watching No.7 David Templeton, silence the home supporters with the shot that keeper Pepe Reina fumbled into his own net to make the tie level on aggregate DAZE OF Z THUNDER The Hearts fans go crazy with joy as their heroes celebrate David Templeton's goal
There was a throbbing sense of dj vu at Anfield on Saturday, as Liverpool frittered away chances, struck the woodwork four more times and allowed two more home points to slip through their butterfingers.
The tourists weren't left to rue the spinner's butterfingers, though, as the opener, when looking to hit over mid-wicket, presented Cook with an easy catch at mid-on.
Another short, Butterfingers, captures the banter between Fulton and legendary singer Kenneth McKellar, with whom he appeared in the famous Five Past Eight shows at the Alhambra in Glasgow.
This poem is also the best answer to Hamby's own concerns about the emptiness of American speech: she finds real poetry--and a democratic vision that echoes both Walt Whitman and Emma Lazarus--in an American linguistic "menagerie" of "Butterfingers" and "black holes," of "butchers" and "spackle" and "quarks." In the end, even if she sometimes finds herself "gagging" on it, Hamby ultimately revels in--even as she gives form to--the anarchic language the "Viking dudes" bequeathed to Hollywood and Madison Avenue.
In contrast to the Snickers and Butterfingers I could have been eating, it wasn't too sugary.
Still, the multitude of advantages that tablets present to K-12 schools should make it well worth putting up with the occasional butterfingers. And those advantages go far beyond instruction.
She said: "I was gutted when Rob Green let the goal in, what a butterfingers.
Toppings include a host of cereals, such as granola and Cocoa Puffs, as well as a variety of candy, including Whoppers, crushed Butterfingers, Skittles and gummi bears - a grand total of 56 topping options.
Trewellard's BUTTERFINGERS (9780385751230, $15.99) tells of Princess Bella, snatched from her secret garden by a terrifying monster, leaving behind nothing but a golden ball.
These students from Palm Beach Gardens Elementary School found their classmate "not guilty" of stealing Butterfingers. This lesson in learning was taught through a pretend court proceeding, giving students opportunities to play roles from judge to jury.
* Also in October Nestle USA will feature King Kong packaging graphics on more than 10 million units of candy bars, including Nestle Crunch, Butterfingers and Baby Ruth.
His Touche - a fencing wasp - has tea strainers for eyes, while his Butterfingers (a butterfly) boasts wings of sheet copper and incorporated soup ladles for the body.
Then there was the incident at Saturday's Twenty20 Cup finals day where a lady fan was smacked a painful blow on the head by a six deflected by a nearby butterfingers.