'butter-fingered' originates from English, specifically the humorous compound 'butterfingers' (or 'butter fingers'), where 'butter' referred to the slippery dairy spread and 'fingers' referred to the digits, implying fingers as slippery as butter.

'butterfingers' emerged as a jocular metaphor in English (late 19th to early 20th century) and later gave rise to the adjectival form 'butter-fingered' used to describe a person who drops things.

Initially it likened fingers to 'butter' (i.e., slippery); over time it came to mean more generally 'clumsy' or 'likely to drop things', often used informally or jokingly.