buttonhole

English

Etymology

Originally buttonhold (a loop of string to hold a button down), but changed by folk etymology by influence of hole; see the Wikipedia article on folk etymology

Pronunciation

• Audio (US)

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Noun

buttonhole (plural buttonholes)

1. A hole through which a button is pushed to secure a garment or some part of one.
2. (chiefly UK) a flower worn in a buttonhole for decoration

Synonyms

• (flower worn in the buttonhole for decoration): boutonniere

Translations

hole for a button

Bulgarian: илик (bg) m. Chinese: Mandarin: 紐孔 (cmn), 纽孔 (cmn) (niǔkǒng) Dutch: knoopsgat (nl) n. Esperanto: butontruo Finnish: napinläpi (fi), napinreikä (fi) French: boutonnière (fr) f. German: Knopfloch (de) n.

Greek: κουμπότρυπα (el) (koumpótrypa) f. Hebrew: חור כפתור ,אִבְקָה Icelandic: hnappagat (is) n. Italian: occhiello (it) m., asola (it) f. Portuguese: casa de botão (pt) f. Russian: петля (ru) (p'etl'á) f., петлица (ru) (p'etlíca) f. Scottish Gaelic: toll-putain (gd) m., cneap-tholl (gd) m. Spanish: ojal (es) m.

flower worn in the buttonhole for decoration

Bulgarian: петлица (bg) f. Icelandic: blóm í hnappagat (is) n., blóm í barm (is) n.

Portuguese: botoeira (pt) f.

Verb

buttonhole (third-person singular simple present buttonholes, present participle buttonholing, simple past and past participle buttonholed)

1. To detain (a person) in conversation against their will.
   • 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 [...] — Philip Roth, "The Plot Against America" (2004)
   • http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004291.html

Synonyms

• (detain (a person) in conversation against their will): accost, waylay

Derived terms

• buttonholer

Translations

• Finnish: napata (fi) rintapielestä (fi)