shirt-button

English

Noun

shirt-button (plural shirt-buttons)

1. A button for a shirt, usually a man's.
   • 1814, Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Chapter 24,^[1]

     […] 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,”^[2]

     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, New York: William Morrow, 1977, pp. 219-220,^[3]

     A couple of his shirtbuttons were missing, the dark hair of his chest protruding through the gap.

Hypernyms

• button