buttoned-up
Americanadjective
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conservative, as in professional style or manner.
Employers are looking for buttoned-up types.
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carefully planned, operated, supervised, etc..
It's one of the most buttoned-up companies in the business.
Etymology
Origin of buttoned-up
First recorded in 1935–40
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.
As he buttoned up a professional baseball uniform for the first time in his life, he understood that he was becoming the guinea pig in an experiment that has the whole industry watching.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 25, 2025
The first episode featured a noticeably stiff Piker standing in front of the camera, wearing a lavender shirt buttoned up to his collar.
From Slate • Feb. 18, 2025
Today, he is quite literally more buttoned up, wearing a proper suit jacket and pale tie - perhaps a reflection of the higher stakes of this criminal proceeding.
From BBC • May 13, 2024
This lawsuit isn’t the only factor complicating the long-planned Kroger and Albertsons merger, which both company leadership and many financial analysts predicted would be completely buttoned up by early 2024.
From Salon • Feb. 20, 2024
His tuxedo jacket was buttoned up over his undershirt and the cop saw the St. Anthony’s medal around his neck and called up the Catholic Hospital ambulance.
From "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" by Betty Smith
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.
