but·ton

(bŭt′n)

a. A generally disk-shaped fastener used to join two parts of a garment by fitting through a buttonhole or loop.

b. Such an object used for decoration.

2. Any of various objects resembling a button, especially:

a. A push-button switch.

b. The blunt tip of a fencing foil.

c. A fused metal or glass globule.

3. Computers

a. In graphical user interface systems, a well-defined area within the interface that is clicked to select a command.

b. In a hypertext database, an icon that when selected allows a user to view a particular associated object.

4. Any of various knoblike structures of an organism, especially:

a. An immature, unexpanded mushroom.

b. The tip of a rattlesnake's rattle.

5. A usually round flat badge that bears a design or printed information and is typically pinned to a garment: a campaign button.

6. Informal The end of the chin, regarded as the point of impact for a punch.

7. Games

a. In card games, especially poker, a plastic disk or similar marker placed in front of the person who is designated as dealer for a particular hand. At the start of each hand, the first card is dealt to the left of the button and the dealing of cards continues clockwise around the table.

b. The person who is in possession of this button.

c. The position on the gaming table where this button is located.

v. but·toned, but·ton·ing, but·tons

v.tr.

1. To fasten with buttons: buttoned his shirt; buttoned up her raincoat.

2. To decorate or furnish with buttons.

3. Informal To close (the lips or mouth): Button your lip.

v.intr.

To be or be capable of being fastened with buttons: The blouse buttons up the back.

Phrasal Verb:

button up

1. To fasten one's clothing tightly, as against cold weather.

2. To close or seal securely: button up the cabin for winter.

3. To complete the final details of: "Publication is a couple of months off; they're just buttoning up paperback rights" (Donald Dale Jackson).

Idiom:

on the button

Exactly; precisely.

[Middle English botoun, from Old French bouton, from bouter, to thrust, of Germanic origin; see bhau- in Indo-European roots.]

but′ton·er n.

but′ton·y adj.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

buttons

(ˈbʌtənz)

(Professions) (functioning as singular) informal Brit a page boy

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

The husband thought to himself, 'If my wife manages matters thus, I must look sharp myself.' Now he had a good deal of gold in the house: so he said to Catherine, 'What pretty yellow buttons these are!

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"Even to a thread, and nice little bars across the end so I can't tear them when I twitch the buttons out.

He evidently had, for he was soon back with a funny little work-bag, out of which he produced a thimble without a top; and, having threaded his needle, he proceeded to sew on the buttons so handily that Rose was much impressed and amused.

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The battered silver cans and tankards, I suppose, and silver buckles, and broken spoons, and silver buttons of worn-out coats, and silver hilts of swords that had figured at court,- all such curious old articles were doubtless thrown into the melting-pot together.

On the wedding day, we may suppose that honest John Hull dressed himself in a plum-colored coat, all the buttons of which were made of pine-tree shillings.

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I gave him the button; whereupon he strung it on a strip of his great-coat which he had used to bind the cross; and tying in a little sprig of birch and another of fir, he looked upon his work with satisfaction.

Then he will see my button, and that was Duncan Stewart's.

And now, John Breck, if ye will hand me over my button, this gentleman and me will be for taking the road."

"What!" cried Alan, "you will lose my button, that was my father's before me?

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A button of mine--the devil take it!--a button of mine that was hanging by a single thread suddenly broke off, and hopped and skipped and rattled and rolled until it had reached the feet of his Excellency himself--this amid a profound general silence!

I remembered what I had seen in the mirror, and hastened to pursue the button. Obstinacy of a sort seized upon me, and I did my best to arrest the thing, but it slipped away, and kept turning over and over, so that I could not grasp it, and made a sad spectacle of myself with my awkwardness.

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In which is related how Dorothy Gale of Kansas, The Shaggy Man, Button Bright, and Polychrome the Rainbow's Daughter met on an Enchanted Road and followed it all the way to the Marvelous Land of Oz.

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