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Buttonhole is easy to pin down as a noun referring to the slit or loop through which a button is passed to fasten something, but its shift to a verb meaning "to detain in conversation" requires some explanation. Buttonhole is an alteration of another verb now long out of use: buttonhold, which literally meant to hold on to the buttons or lapels of someone's coat when speaking to him or her. In the mid-19th century, English speakers altered the verb to buttonhole, perhaps as a result of hearing buttonhold as buttonholed. The overlap is apparent in an early instance of this spelling in an 1862 London publication called All Year Round: "The man who is button-holed, or held … and must listen to half an hour's harangue about nothing interesting."
Examples of buttonhole in a Sentence
Margaret Brennan, CBS News, 20 Oct. 2024
Every shirt in the label’s Gold Line involves 35 hours of detailed handwork, including buttonholes that take 45 minutes of stitching each.
—Martin Lerma, Robb Report, 4 Sep. 2024
The paper tags had been removed, but a few plastic fasteners remained, protruding from various buttonholes on his sleeves and chest.
—Simon Rich, The New Yorker, 6 May 2024
Place the button in its original position on the fabric, aligning it with the empty buttonholes.
—Maryal Miller Carter, USA TODAY, 4 Jan. 2024
Insert the needle through the backside of the fabric, bringing it up through one of the buttonholes.
—Maryal Miller Carter, USA TODAY, 4 Jan. 2024
The pregnancy hair tie trick of looping a hair tie through the buttonhole of your pants and tying it around the button didn’t last me through my entire pregnancy.
—Katrina Cossey, Parents, 9 Feb. 2024
There are minor imperfections (the topmost of the polo’s four buttonholes arrived unfinished and a touch ragged) and the shirt’s large, soft collar, the only option, gets helplessly flummoxed under even a light blazer.
—Josh Condon, Robb Report, 3 Sep. 2023
Slip drapery rings through the buttonholes and then slide the rings on the curtain rod, or use curtain ring clips to attach the shower curtain.
—Megan Boettcher, Better Homes & Gardens, 3 May 2023
Nathan Heller, Vogue, 17 Oct. 2024
He then was buttonholed outside the hotel for his opinion on what happened.
—Bruce Haring, Deadline, 13 June 2024
At the late, lamented Toronado tavern, I was buttonholed by a stranger raving about Cellarmaker’s beers.
—Peter Rowe, San Diego Union-Tribune, 29 Mar. 2024
Getting buttonholed didn’t seem to bother Pence, either.
—T.a. Frank, Washington Post, 28 June 2023
Califf has been making the rounds on Capitol Hill to discuss President Biden’s budget request for the Food and Drug Administration, and the appearances give lawmakers a chance to buttonhole him on budget items as well as politically explosive issues that have nothing to do with the funding request.
—John Wilkerson, STAT, 19 Apr. 2023
The first time she was buttonholed by a consulting firm was freshman year.
—Nathan Heller, The New Yorker, 27 Feb. 2023
Before the show, the accountants buttonholed stage managers Gary Natoli and John Esposito to clarify.
—Seija Rankin, The Hollywood Reporter, 16 Feb. 2023
In March, when a vote on coronavirus aid was delayed several hours, Ms. Gillibrand used that time to meander from one senator’s hideaway office near the Senate floor to the next to buttonhole them on the issue.
—New York Times, 27 Apr. 2021
Dictionary Entries Near buttonhole
Cite this Entry
“Buttonhole.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/buttonhole. Accessed 1 Dec. 2024.
Copy CitationKids Definition
buttonhole
1 of 2 noun
buttonhole
2 of 2 verb
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