buttering

基本解释

Talk to your professors beforehand (but no buttering please) and find out how you can fare better at the classes.
事先和自己的教授聊聊天（切忌巴结），找出如何可以更好的在班级中生存；
Don't praise Westerners too highly when we compliment them. Otherwise, they may think you're just buttering them up!
当我们称赞西方人时不要把他们捧过头，否则，他们会认为你只是在奉承。
Most interviewees require a lavish show of flattery before they will relax but McCartney is the opposite: she seems to tense up and retreat the instant she thinks I'm buttering her up.
大多数的受访者都喜欢听奉承话，这样他们才会放松起来。但麦卡特尼恰恰相反：她看起来变得神经紧张，在觉得我在拍马屁的时候，她似乎想回避。

He intends to buy ads in Cambodian, Spanish and Korean newspapers and already spends evenings buttering up church groups.
FORBES: Magazine Article
Zurich's bankers claim they can easily substitute Internet updates and polished chrome for evenings at the opera and velvet plush—when it comes to buttering up, they are flexible.
ECONOMIST: Private banking
He cultivates what he sees as his many constituencies, attending meetings, giving speeches and buttering up the rich at restaurants with the energy of a man running for office.
ECONOMIST: A delicate task for William Bratton in Los Angeles

Butter is a soft yellow substance made from cream. You spread it on bread or use it in cooking.
If you butter something such as bread or toast, you spread butter on it.