a fat, unctuous substance, prepared from milk by beating or churning. It was late ere the Greeks appear to have had any notion of butter; their poets make no mention of it, and yet speak frequently of milk and cheese. The Romans used butter as a medicine, never as food. According to Beckman, the invention of butter belongs neither to the Greeks nor to the Romans. The former, he thinks, derived their knowledge of butter from the Scythians, the Thracians, and Phrygians; and the latter from the people of Germany. The ancient Christians of Egypt burnt butter in their lamps instead of oil; and in the Roman churches it was anciently allowed, during Christmas time, to burn butter instead of oil, on account of the great consumption of the latter at that season.