button-down

[buht-n-doun]

adjective

1. (of a shirt collar) having buttonholes so it can be buttoned to the body of the shirt.

2. (of a shirt) having a button-down collar.

3. (of a shirt) having buttons down the front from the collar to the bottom.

4. Also buttoned-down (especially of attitudes, opinions, etc.) extremely conventional; unimaginative.

button-down

adjective

1. (of a collar) having points that are fastened to the garment with buttons

2. (of a shirt) having a button-down collar

3. Also: buttoned-down. conventional or conservative

   a button-down corporate culture

Word History and Origins

Origin of button-down¹

An Americanism dating back to 1930–35

Example Sentences

Restaurants hummed with more than half of their tables full, many taken up by people in the San Francisco work uniform: a button-down shirt and a puffer vest.

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Hundreds of eighth-graders in freshly ironed button-down shirts and flowing dresses filed into Andrew Carnegie Middle School with their families Tuesday morning in high spirits.

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Dressed casually in a plaid gray button-down shirt and beige pants, he drinks iced tea at a back-corner booth at Swingers Diner in West Hollywood.

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Lynch was wearing his uniform of the period — worn khakis, white button-down shirt, black blazer.

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Jimmy Carter wore a button-down shirt in Khartoum.

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