button
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: Button
Pronunciation
Etymology 1
From Middle English boton, botoun, from Old French boton (Modern French bouton), from Old French bouter, boter (“to push; thrust”), ultimately from a Germanic language. Doublet of Biden and beat. More at butt.
Shirt button (sense 1)
Push button (sense 2)
Buttons on a GUI (sense 3)
Badge worn on clothes, fixed with a pin (sense 4)
The button of a violin (sense 22).
Noun
button (plural buttons)
- (clothing) A knob or disc that is passed through a loop or (buttonhole), serving as a fastener. [from mid-13th c.]
- 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:
- I liked the man for his own sake, and even had he promised to turn out a celebrity it would have had no weight with me. I look upon notoriety with the same indifference as on the buttons on a man's shirt-front, or the crest on his note-paper.
- April fastened the buttons of her overcoat to keep out the wind.
- A mechanical device meant to be pressed with a finger in order to open or close an electric circuit or to activate a mechanism.
- Pat pushed the button marked "shred" on the blender.
- (graphical user interface) An on-screen control that can be selected as an activator of an attached function.
- Click the button that looks like a house to return to your browser's home page.
- (US) A badge worn on clothes, fixed with a pin through the fabric.
- The politician wore a bright yellow button with the slogan "Vote Smart" emblazoned on it.
- (botany) A bud.
- c. 1613–1614, William Shakespeare, John Fletcher, The Two Noble Kinsmen, act 3, scene 1, lines 4–6:
- O queen Emilia, / Fresher than May, sweeter / Than her gold buttons on the boughs,
- The head of an unexpanded mushroom.
- (slang) The clitoris.
- (curling) The center (bullseye) of the house.
- (fencing) The soft circular tip at the end of a foil.
- (poker) A plastic disk used to represent the person in last position in a poker game; also dealer's button.
- (poker) The player who is last to act after the flop, turn and river, who possesses the button.
- (archaic) A person who acts as a decoy.
- A raised pavement marker to further indicate the presence of a pavement-marking painted stripe.
- (aviation) The end of a runway.
- 1984, Synopses of Aircraft Accidents: Civil Aircraft in Canada, page 42:
- In attempting to touch down on the button of the runway, he misjudged his altitude and struck a pile of rocks short of the runway. The right wheel was torn off and the gear leg bent backwards.
- 1999, Les Morrison, Of Luck and War, page 69:
- The second and slightly higher aircraft on the approach showed no reaction to this barrage of pyrotechnics and continued blissfully down toward the button of the runway.
- (South Africa, slang) A methaqualone tablet (used as a recreational drug).
- A piece of wood or metal, usually flat and elongated, turning on a nail or screw, to fasten something, such as a door.
- A globule of metal remaining on an assay cupel or in a crucible, after fusion.
- A knob; a small ball; a small, roundish mass.
- A small white blotch on a cat's coat.
- (UK, archaic) A unit of length equal to 1⁄12 inch.
- (generally with the) The means for initiating a nuclear strike or similar cataclysmic occurrence.
- 1986, "Weird Al" Yankovic (lyrics and music), “Christmas at Ground Zero”, in Polka Party!:
- It's Christmas at ground zero / The button has been pressed / The radio / Just let us know / That this is not a test
- (glassblowing) The oblate spheroidal mass of glass attaching a stem to either its bowl or foot.
- (lutherie) In an instrument of the violin family, the near-semicircular shape extending from the top of the back plate of the instrument, meeting the heel of the neck.
- (lutherie) Synonym of endbutton, part of a violin-family instrument.
- (lutherie, bowmaking) Synonym of adjuster.
- The least amount of care or interest; a whit or jot.
- 1863, Sheridan Le Fanu, The House by the Churchyard:
- 'She has heard from us this morning,' said Mr. Gamble, grinning on his watch, 'and she knows all by this time, and 'tisn't a button to her.'
- 1922, Van Tassel Sutphen, In Jeopardy:
- As to that I did not care a button, but I had wanted to hear about Betty, and now her name was barely mentioned.
- (television) The punchy or suspenseful line of dialogue that concludes a scene.
- Synonym: blow
- 2006, David Kukoff, Vault Guide to Television Writing Careers, page 77:
- One thing you definitely don't want to do is write past the button. For example, a scene's natural button might run something like this:
TONY: That kind of talk is exactly what I'm talking about.
Whereas an example of writing past the button would sound something like this:
TONY: That kind of talk is exactly what I'm talking about.
CARMELLA: Okay. 'Bye.
TONY: Bye.
- (comedy) The final joke at the end of a comedic act (such as a sketch, set, or scene).
- 2016 July 12, Jessica Goldstein, “How to best end a comedy sketch? It’s hard to go wrong with gruesome death”, in The Washington Post:
- Is there a best way to end a comedy sketch? Endings — or outs, or buttons as writers call them — are notoriously difficult to nail. The ideal ending needs to be satisfying and surprising while staying true to the comedic game that preceded it.
- (slang) A button man; a professional assassin.
- 1973, Mario Puzo, Francis Ford Coppola, The Godfather Part II (screenplay, second draft)
- FREDO: Mikey, why would they ever hit poor old Frankie Five-Angels? I loved that ole sonuvabitch. I remember when he was just a 'button,' when we were kids.
- 1973, Mario Puzo, Francis Ford Coppola, The Godfather Part II (screenplay, second draft)
- The final segment of a rattlesnake's rattle.
- 1936, Laurence Monroe Klauber, A Statistical Study of the Rattlesnakes, page 26:
- Hardly a rattler is ever reported in the newspapers unless it is stated to have had "blank rattles and a button". But here button usually means the terminal lobe of the last rattle, even though the string may not be complete, the true button and additional rattles having been lost.
- (dated, Southern US) A clove (of garlic).
- (zoology) Pedicle; the attachment point for antlers in cervids.
Usage notes
For senses 2 and 3, a button is often marked by a verb rather than a noun, and the button itself is named with the verb followed by button. For example, a button to start something is generally called a start button.
Hypernyms
- (graphical user interface): widget
Hyponyms
Derived terms
- bachelors button
- bachelor's button
- Barbara's buttons
- bebuttoned
- beg button
- beggar's buttons
- bell button
- belly-button
- bellybutton
- belly button
- belly button ring
- big red button
- billy buttons
- blue button
- boss button
- boy in buttons
- bright as a button
- bright as a new button
- button accordion
- buttonball
- button bar
- buttonbush
- button cactus
- button cell
- button day
- button ear
- buttonfront
- button grass
- button hole
- button-hole
- buttonhole
- buttonhook
- buttonize
- buttonless
- button lift
- buttonlike
- button lock
- buttonmaker
- buttonmaking
- button man
- button mangrove
- button mash
- button masher
- button-mashing
- button mashing
- buttonmould
- button mushroom
- button nose
- buttonologist
- buttonology
- button-on
- button plant
- button punch
- button-quail
- buttonquail
- button scurvy
- button seal
- button smuggler
- button snakeroot
- button squash
- button-up
- button up one's lip
- buttonweed
- buttonwillow
- buttonwood
- button wrinklewort
- buttony
- buzz button
- call button
- campaign button
- care a button
- cheese button
- chest button
- chicken button
- chicory button
- collar-button
- collar button
- collar-button abscess
- cough button
- cute as a button
- disbutton
- Dorset button
- electric button
- endbutton
- end button
- end-button
- fire button
- fussbutton
- hamburger button
- happy button
- high button shoe
- hit the button
- hold by the button
- hot button
- hot-button
- keybutton
- love button
- multibutton
- multibuttoned
- Murphy's button
- neat as a button
- nuclear button
- on the button
- option button
- panic button
- placebo button
- prebutton
- press button
- press someone's buttons
- push-button, push button, pushbutton
- push someone's buttons
- push the right buttons
- Quaker buttons
- radial button
- radio button
- reset button
- sew buttons
- sew buttons on your underwear
- shirt-button
- sleeve-button
- snooze button
- spin button
- Start button
- stay-button
- Szechuan button
- tang button
- thistle button
- tich button
- tummy button
- turn button
Descendants
Translations
knob or small disc serving as a fastener
|
a mechanical device meant to be pressed with a finger
|
in computer software, an on-screen control that can be selected
|
a badge worn on clothes
|
botany: a bud
|
slang: clitoris
fencing: a soft tip of the foil
|
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
|
See also
Etymology 2
From Middle English butonen, botonen, from the noun (see above).
Verb
button (third-person singular simple present buttons, present participle buttoning, simple past and past participle buttoned)
- (transitive) To fasten with a button. [from late 14th c.]
- 1838 March – 1839 October, Charles Dickens, chapter 50, in The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1839, →OCLC:
- He was a tall, fat, long-bodied man, buttoned up to the throat in a tight green coat.
- (intransitive) To be fastened by a button or buttons.
- The coat will not button.
- (Can we clean up(+) this sense?) (informal) To stop talking.
Derived terms
Translations
to fasten with a button
|
to be fastened with a button
|
Further reading
Anagrams
Noun
button
- Alternative form of botoun
Wikiwand in your browser!
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Every time you click a link to Wikipedia, Wiktionary or Wikiquote in your browser's search results, it will show the modern Wikiwand interface.
Wikiwand extension is a five stars, simple, with minimum permission required to keep your browsing private, safe and transparent.
