button - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

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 bouton, 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 24).

button (plural buttons)

  1. (clothing) A knob or disc that is passed through a loop or (buttonhole), serving as a fastener. [from mid-13th c.]
    • 1961, Xavier Herbert, Soldiers' Women, Netley, SA: Fontana Books, published 1978, page 88:
      Rather should it be said that these ladies wore dress of military style, since there was nothing uniform about their outfits, one being in powder-blue with silver buttons and a forage-cap, the other in tan with gold buttons and the dinkiest of red-peaked kepis.
      April fastened the buttons of her overcoat to keep out the wind.
  2. A mechanical device designed 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.
  3. (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.
  4. (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.
  5. (botany) A bud.
  6. The calyx of an orange.
    • 1969, Federal Register, volume 34, numbers 125-134, page 11315:
      Not well healed, or aggregating more than a circle 14 inch in diameter on a 200 size orange. More than a few adjacent to the "button" at the stem end or more than 6 scattered on other portions of the fruit.
  7. The head of an unexpanded mushroom.
  8. (slang) The clitoris.
  9. (curling) The center (bullseye) of the house.
  10. (fencing) The soft circular tip at the end of a foil.
  11. (poker) A plastic disk used to represent the person in last position in a poker game; also dealer's button.
  12. (poker) The player who is last to act after the flop, turn and river, who possesses the button.
  13. (archaic) A person who acts as a decoy.
  14. A raised pavement marker to further indicate the presence of a pavement-marking painted stripe.
  15. (aviation) The end of a runway.
  1. (South Africa, slang) A methaqualone tablet (used as a recreational drug).
  2. A piece of wood or metal, usually flat and elongated, turning on a nail or screw, to fasten something, such as a door.
  3. A globule of metal remaining on an assay cupel or in a crucible, after fusion.
  4. A knob; a small ball; a small, roundish mass.
  5. A small white blotch on a cat's coat.
  6. (UK, archaic) A unit of length equal to 1⁄12 inch.
  7. (generally with the) The means for initiating a nuclear strike or similar cataclysmic occurrence.
  1. (glassblowing) The oblate spheroidal mass of glass attaching a stem to either its bowl or foot.
  2. (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.
  3. (lutherie) Synonym of endbutton, part of a violin-family instrument.
  4. (lutherie, bowmaking) Synonym of adjuster.
  5. The least amount of care or interest; a whit or jot.
  1. (television) The punchy or suspenseful line of dialogue that concludes a scene.
    Synonym: blow
  1. (comedy) The final joke at the end of a comedic act (such as a sketch, set, or scene).
  1. (slang) A button man; a professional assassin.
  1. The final segment of a rattlesnake's rattle.
  1. (dated, Southern US) A clove (of garlic).
  2. (zoology) Pedicle; the attachment point for antlers in cervids.

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

a raised pavement marker

Translations to be checked

From Middle English butonen, botonen, from the noun (see above).

button (third-person singular simple present buttons, present participle buttoning, simple past and past participle buttoned)

  1. (transitive) To fasten with a button. [from late 14th c.]
  2. (intransitive) To be fastened by a button or buttons.
    The coat will not button.
  3. (Can we clean up(+) this sense?) (informal) To stop talking.

to fasten with a button

button

  1. alternative form of botoun