A buttercup is a small wild flower, usually a bright, shiny yellow, as if the petals had been polished. You find it in grass and fields, often in clumps, in spring and summer. The name is butter + cup: the flower looks a little like a tiny cup, and the yellow made people think of butter. There is an old children's game of holding a buttercup under someone's chin to 'see if they like butter' — the yellow light on the skin. It is not a flower you eat, and nobody makes butter from it. Everyday English uses it as a countryside, slightly story-book plant name. The picture in most people's heads is that glossy yellow, though paler kinds exist.