Pronunciations
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/ˈbʌtənˌhoʊl/
Pronunciation notes
- General-American
Noun
A hole through which a button is pushed to secure a garment or some part of one.
A flower worn in a buttonhole for decoration.
Usage- UK usage
- Synonyms
A flower worn in a buttonhole for decoration. So shaped that it can be worn on a buttonhole or it is similar to a buttonhole.
Usage- UK usage
- attributive
A small slotlike cut or incision, made for example by an accident with the scalpel.
- Examples
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The usual cause of conjunctival buttonholes is penetration of the tissue by the tip of a sharp instrument […]
The mouth, nose or eyes of a tiny appearance.
The vagina, a coin slot.
Usage- Obsolete
The butthole (anus).
Verb
To detain (a person) in conversation against their will.
Usage- Colloquial
- Transitive
- Examples
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More examples (4)
He backed Mr. Lykins against an iron fence, buttonholed him, fastened him with his eye, like the ancient mariner, and proceeded to unfold his narrative as placidly and peacefully as if we were all stretched comfortably in a blossomy summer meadow instead of being persecuted by a wintry midnight tempest: […]
He buttonholed people on the street and related details of his child’s miraculous progress without even prefacing his remarks with the hypocritical but polite: “I know everyone thinks their own child is smart but—”
Hiro and Chuck grab the closest thing they can find to a corner table. Hiro buttonholes a waiter and surreptitiously orders a pitcher of Pub Special, mixed half and half with nonalcoholic beer.
Here they are, the brainless few we had been raised to pity and fear, the Stone Age oafs and the seething runts and the ominous, swaggering weightlifters, buttonholing kids like me out on Chancellor Avenue and telling us to keep our baseball bats at the ready in case we were called in the night to take to the streets [...]
To cut one or more buttonholes (in).
Usage- Transitive or intransitive
To sew by buttonhole stitch.
Usage- Transitive
To make a small slot-like incision in (intentionally or unintentionally).
Usage- Archaic
- Transitive
To apply a flowery formation in.
Usage- Rare
- Transitive
- Examples
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More examples (1)
What tree of more pulchritude and symmetricalness could you nominate for roadside, street and public park planting than the graceful linden? We should possess more of the spirit which predominates in this direction in the crowning gem of America’s constitutionality—the City of Washington, D. C. ‘‘Unter den Lindens’’ would not only be found in Germany, but in all the large cities of our grand and glorious United States. Washington has her Unter den Linden in the Massachussetts^([sic]) avenue. Her North and South Capital streets are buttonholed with the stately tulips, which are fit emblems to thus adorn the meridian of the United States.
To attain buttonhole-like formations on cutting.
Usage- Archaic
- Intransitive
- Rare
- Examples
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More examples (1)
Furze cut it himself after his dinner, with great care and concentrated solemnity, finding the loaf rather too new and the knife too blunt for the carving of slices of ideal thinness. The beastly things would buttonhole!
Noun
a hole through which buttons are pushed
- Synonyms
- Broader terms
Verb
detain in conversation by or as if by holding on to the outer garments of; as for political or economic favors
- Synonyms