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
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has been buttonholingperfect progressive
Past
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buttonholedsimple
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had buttonholedperfect
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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:
"I would say that the buttonhole needling technique destroyed her life, certainly destroyed her health," says Dr Macanovic.
From BBC ● Mar. 15, 2024
They relied on Griffin, who utilized her thick Rolodexes and neighborhood connections to buttonhole politicians, community members and others to fight.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 21, 2024
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
His red coat with black trim, red waistcoat with hand-stitched buttonholes and gold regimental buttons, and white breeches “represent the only complete uniform of the Revolutionary war.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 18, 2025
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
I was thanking my stars that I’d learned to make nice buttonholes, when the parlor door opened and shut, and someone began to hum, Kennst Du Das Land, like a big bumblebee.
From "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott
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
All week he darted around the House floor, buttonholed defectors, hustled to talk to top McCarthy advisers and then ducked into at least a dozen closed-door meetings.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 7, 2023
The judge agreed, and for a moment Hale personally buttonholed Burkhart in the courtroom, the plot unfolding this time right in front of White.
From "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann
Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust told the BBC that while UK vascular access guidelines do not recommend buttonholing, they "do not specifically state that it is contraindicated".
From BBC ● Mar. 15, 2024
They’ve had mixed success buttonholing people on the street to pose.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 21, 2023
“Out of Control,” which in 1979 had jabbing, buttonholing electric guitar and bass lines, has become a cozy, cheerfully strummed self-affirmation, very much in control.
From New York Times ● Mar. 17, 2023
A young William Boeing showed up day after day, buttonholing every pilot he could for a skyride.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 10, 2023
Take the legacy of 60s poets, for example, who cant help but write like him; syntactically careering around his blizzard of words, elbow-jolting crazily, clutching at each others earmuffs, buttonholing opportunity.
From Unmanned by Stephen Oliver
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.
