> as lemmas

a1625 J. Fletcher Womans Prize i. iii, in F. Beaumont & J. Fletcher Comedies & Trag. (1647) sig. Nnnnn2/1 I shall rise again, if there be truth In Egges, and butter'd Pasnips.]

1638 J. Clarke Phraseologia Puerilis sig. A6 Spe non saginatur venter. Faire words butter no parsnips.

1645 R. Overton Sacred Decretall 5 Fair words butter no fish.

1680 R. L'Estrange tr. Erasmus 20 Select Colloquies ix. 131 Your Charity upon Earth will be rewarded in Heaven... Those words, Butter no Parsnips.

1726 J. Stevens New Dict. Span. & Eng. at Dinero Money does all things, but fair words butter no cabbage.

1797 G. Colman Heir at Law iii. ii. 44 Business is business; and words you know butter no parsnips.

1821 Old Wives' Tales 27 ‘He was always good-natured to me.’ ‘Ah! my dear, “fair words butter no turnips”.’

1867 A. Trollope Last Chron. Barset I. xlii. 363 I often tell 'em how wrong folks are to say that soft words butter no parsnips, and hard words break no bones.

1870 J. R. Lowell Among my Bks. (1873) 1st Ser. 358 Fine words, says our homely old proverb, butter no parsnips.

1930 London Mercury Aug. 380 Our forefathers rejected ‘smarmy’ overtures with ‘Fair words butter no parsnips.’

1946 P. Larkin Let. 15 May in Sel. Lett. (1992) 118 All this is theorising, stony talk that butters no parsnips.

1971 S. Jepson Let. to Dead Girl xv. 177 I told him calling me names wasn't buttering his parsnips.

1997 Mirror (Nexis) 30 Apr. 2 Mr Major..baffled an audience by adding: ‘A soundbite never buttered a parsnip.’

2015 Observer (Nexis) 15 Apr. Fine words butter no parsnips. Without explicit commitment to secure and sustainable funding the community can hardly be reassured.