shirt-button

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English

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Alternative forms

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Noun

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shirt-button (plural shirt-buttons)

  1. A button for a shirt, usually a man's.
    • 1814 May 9, [Jane Austen], chapter XXIV, in Mansfield Park: [], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: [] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, [], →OCLC:
      [] though Mrs. Norris could fidget about the room, and disturb everybody in quest of two needlefuls of thread or a second-hand shirt button, in the midst of her nephew’s account of a shipwreck or an engagement, everybody else was attentive []
    • 1853, Herman Melville, Bartleby, the Scrivener[1]:
      He had frequently restored to me sixpences and shillings carelessly dropped upon the floor, for I am apt to be very reckless in such shirt-button affairs [i.e., involving things of low value].
    • 1975, André Brink, An Instant in the Wind[2], New York: William Morrow, published 1977, pages 219–220:
      A couple of his shirtbuttons were missing, the dark hair of his chest protruding through the gap.

Hypernyms

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