button

pronunciation

How to pronounce button in British English: UK [ˈbʌtn] word uk audio image

How to pronounce button in American English: US [ˈbʌtn] word us audio image

Noun:

a round fastener sewn to shirts and coats etc to fit through buttonholes
an electrical switch operated by pressing a button
any of various plant parts that resemble buttons
a female sexual organ homologous to the penis
Verb:

provide with buttons
fasten with buttons

Word Origin

button: button: [14] Button comes via Old French bouton from Vulgar Latin *botōne, a word connected with the verb *hottāre ‘thrust’ (from which ultimately English gets butt ‘hit with the head’). The underlying notion contained in button is thus of something which pushes up, thrusts itself outwards, rather like a bud growing on a plant; the fact that the resulting round knob is used for fastening is, from the point of view of the word’s semantic history, secondary. (Inconclusive attempts have in fact been made to link bud with Old French boter, a descendant of Vulgar Latin *bottāre, and from the 15th century the word button has been applied in English to ‘buds’.)=> butt

button (n.): c. 1300 (surname Botouner "button-maker" attested from mid-13c.), from Old French boton "a button," originally "a bud" (12c., Modern French bouton), from bouter, boter "to thrust," common Romanic (Spanish boton, Italian bottone), ultimately from Germanic (see butt (v.)). Thus a button is, etymologically, something that pushes up, or thrusts out. Meaning "point of the chin" is pugilistic slang, by 1921. A button as something you push to create an effect by closing an (electrical) circuit is attested from 1840s. Button-pusher as "deliberately annoying or provocative person" is attested by 1990 (in reference to Bill Gates, in "InfoWorld" magazine, Nov. 19). In the 1980s it meant "photographer."

button (v.): late 14c., "to furnish with buttons;" early 15c., "to fasten with buttons" (of a garment,) from button (n.) or from Old French botoner (Modern French boutonner), from boton (n.). Related: Buttoned; buttoning. Button-down (adj.) in reference to shirt collars is from 1916.

vt.

vt. & vi.