A butter knife is a small, dull knife with a rounded tip or pointed tip, used solely for slicing butter and spreading it on bread. The butter knife has been a popular piece of silverware or flatware for a couple of centuries. Victorian antique butter knives are often elaborately carved affairs, often made mostly of silver. Today, when you buy flatware sets, you commonly get one butter knife.

The point of the butter knife, since it is often shared, is to avoid using your own knife to slice pieces off butter. Especially if you are in the midst of eating and have used your knife to cut other parts of your dinner, using your personal knife to cut butter is a faux pas. By offering a butter knife, you can assure that really the only thing touching the knife besides the butter will be the bread people spread the butter on, or possibly corn on the cob and a few other things that are topped with butter.

In some cases, you merely use the butter knife to cut the butter you need, then you use your own knife to spread the butter where you wish. This gives you more time to place butter on whatever food requires butter without hogging the butter while you make use of the butter knife.

The modern butter knife often looks very much like a regular flatware knife; only it is usually about half the size. It may feature either a pointed or rounded tip. Fans of the butter knife may prefer the rounded tip style since this prevents you from accidentally spearing the bread you are buttering. The rounded tip butter knife may also be called a butter spreader.

If you’d like to use a butter knife that is unique or interesting, consider an antique one. These can be very beautiful, and you can often find ones that will coordinate well with your flatware or silverware. Some, especially the rare ones, can be pricey. It’s not uncommon for a rare Victorian butter knife to sell for over 100 US dollars (USD). Others may be more reasonably priced at 50-70 USD.

If you’re devoted to your flatware or silverware pattern and would like to have more than one butter knife for large parties, you can usually order additional butter knives from the company. Provided your pattern is still being made, it’s likely you’ll be able to find extra pieces you need. If your pattern has been discontinued, eBay is the best resource for adding an extra butter knife to your current collection of flatware.