A butcher knife is a specialist meat knife: a broad, double-bevel blade with a curved spine and a rounded tip that sweeps upward, so the blade can be pointed almost straight down into the board. In Japanese it is a nikukiri (肉切り), simply 'meat cutter'. The blade is fairly short for the work it does and thicker than a slicer. Lengths vary more than on most shapes, so go by the listed size.
It is built for quartering, deboning and slicing large cuts: separating meat from bone, trimming fat and sinew, and working through cartilage and joints. The upswept round tip lets you make a long slicing cut down through a thick piece of meat with a relatively short blade. Compared with the honesuki, its sibling, it is heavier and rounder at the front, made for red-meat primals rather than poultry joints. It is not a general-purpose kitchen knife.
