buttonhole
Americannoun
verb (used with object)
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buttonholes,
present (3rd person singular)
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buttonholed,
past participle, past
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buttonholing
present participle
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to sew with a buttonhole stitch.
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to make buttonholes in.
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to hold by the buttonhole or otherwise abruptly detain (someone) in conversation.
The reporter tried to buttonhole the mayor for a statement on the bus strike.
noun
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a slit in a garment, etc, through which a button is passed to fasten two surfaces together
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US name: boutonniere. a flower or small bunch of flowers worn pinned to the lapel or in the buttonhole, esp at weddings, formal dances, etc
verb
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to detain (a person) in conversation
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to make buttonholes in
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to sew with buttonhole stitch
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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buttonholesimple
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buttonholessimple
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have buttonholedperfect
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has buttonholedperfect
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am buttonholingprogressive
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are buttonholingprogressive
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is buttonholingprogressive
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have been buttonholingperfect progressive
-
has been buttonholingperfect progressive
Past
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buttonholedsimple
-
had buttonholedperfect
-
was buttonholingprogressive
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were buttonholingprogressive
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had been buttonholingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of buttonhole
Vocabulary lists containing buttonhole
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Ashley Roper, 37, from Heckmondwike, suffered what is known as a buttonhole tear of her perineum while giving birth at Pinderfields Hospital in Wakefield in 2017.
From BBC ● Jun. 7, 2024
For days as the historic floor fight played out, Mr. McCarthy had remained in his seat and dispatched allies to buttonhole the remaining holdouts privately.
From New York Times ● Jan. 7, 2023
They have lunches, meet at conferences, buttonhole departmental women visitors, set up private Facebook pages and Slack channels, and are all over Twitter.
From Scientific American ● Mar. 25, 2022
This opens the floor to everyone who has ideas — not just those with the loudest voices or the chutzpah to buttonhole leaders in passing to pitch their ideas.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 24, 2022
Above it there was a small buttonhole, and in the buttonhole he placed the snowdrop, the glass flower that his father had given him as a luck token when he had left Wall.
From "Stardust" by Neil Gaiman
And his simple Quaker-like garb, which contrasts with Houdon’s use of classical references in other portraits, is rendered meticulously, down to the threads of the unused buttonholes.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026
The golf stories are narrated by the “oldest member” of an upper-class golf club who buttonholes unwary younger members to regale them with his memories of golfers he has known.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 18, 2025
David Whelan said his brother must work at least eight hours a day, six days a week, on menial tasks like making buttonholes, which has caused him repetitive strain injury.
From Reuters ● Nov. 3, 2022
He buttonholes Bennedith and tells her a story about the time he was wronged by an evil nun with a maimed hand.
From New York Times ● Jul. 12, 2022
His brown hair is tousled, his shirt buttons in the wrong buttonholes.
From "Insurgent" by Veronica Roth
Tegmark buttonholed Elon Musk at a 2014 MIT conference on space, after one of his students asked a question that prompted the billionaire’s now-famous quip that, with AI, “we are summoning the demon.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 4, 2026
At a moment of vulnerability, Harper is buttonholed by an old classmate named Sue.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 19, 2025
So she buttonholed Rubinstien while he was out walking his dog, a pit bull mix named Chubbs.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 10, 2023
Behind the scenes, she buttonholed lawmakers in both parties, picking up votes as she made her case.
From New York Times ● Sep. 14, 2021
A reporter from United Press buttonholed Al Ulbrickson on the way into the shell house and asked him what he thought of his boys.
From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown
The trust acknowledged that Dr Sangala and Ms Kattenhorn were supportive of the buttonholing technique and had spoken about it at national and international conferences.
From BBC ● Mar. 15, 2024
A young William Boeing showed up day after day, buttonholing every pilot he could for a skyride.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 10, 2023
Netanyahu continued the efforts until the last moment, according to reports from the chamber, buttonholing individual members overnight as the voting continued on more than 700 individual provisions.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 4, 2021
Later, both of them could be seen on the Senate floor buttonholing colleagues and talking through possible revisions to the bill.
From New York Times ● Jul. 30, 2021
Sir George in a corner is buttonholing Frederic and saddening him with last accounts of the Scapegrace.
From April's Lady A Novel by Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
