# button
## English
### Pronunciation

* (UK, US) IPA: /ˈbʌtən/, [ˈbʌtn̩], [ˈbʌʔ(t̚)n̩], [ˈbʌʔtən], [ˈbʌʔtⁿn̩]
* (Philippines) IPA: /bʌˈt̪ən̪/, /bʊˈt̪oːn̪/, /bɔˈt̪oːn̪/
* (Singapore) IPA: /ˈbʌːʔtən/
* Audio (US):(file)
* Rhymes: -ʌtən

### Etymology 1

From Middle English boton, botoun, from Old French boton (Modern French bouton), from Old French bouter, boter (“to push; thrust”), ultimately from a Germanic language. Doublet of Biden and beat. More at butt.

#### Noun

button (plural buttons)
* (clothing) A knob or disc that is passed through a loop or (buttonhole), serving as a fastener. [from mid-13th c.]
** 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:I liked the man for his own sake, and even had he promised to turn out a celebrity it would have had no weight with me. I look upon notoriety with the same indifference as on the buttons on a man's shirt-front, or the crest on his note-paper.
    April fastened the buttons of her overcoat to keep out the wind.
* A mechanical device meant to be pressed with a finger in order to open or close an electric circuit or to activate a mechanism.
    Pat pushed the button marked "shred" on the blender.
* (graphical user interface) An on-screen control that can be selected as an activator of an attached function.
    Click the button that looks like a house to return to your browser's home page.
* (US) A badge worn on clothes, fixed with a pin through the fabric.
    The politician wore a bright yellow button with the slogan "Vote Smart" emblazoned on it.
* (botany) A bud.
** c. 1613–1614, William Shakespeare, John Fletcher, The Two Noble Kinsmen, act 3, scene 1, lines 4–6:O queen Emilia, / Fresher than May, sweeter / Than her gold buttons on the boughs,
* The head of an unexpanded mushroom.
* (slang) The clitoris.
* (curling) The center (bullseye) of the house.
* (fencing) The soft circular tip at the end of a foil.
* (poker) A plastic disk used to represent the person in last position in a poker game; also dealer's button.
* (poker) The player who is last to act after the flop, turn and river, who possesses the button.
* (archaic) A person who acts as a decoy.
* A raised pavement marker to further indicate the presence of a pavement-marking painted stripe.
* (aviation) The end of a runway.
** 1984, Synopses of Aircraft Accidents: Civil Aircraft in Canada, page 42:In attempting to touch down on the button of the runway, he misjudged his altitude and struck a pile of rocks short of the runway. The right wheel was torn off and the gear leg bent backwards.
** 1999, Les Morrison, Of Luck and War, page 69:The second and slightly higher aircraft on the approach showed no reaction to this barrage of pyrotechnics and continued blissfully down toward the button of the runway.
* (South Africa, slang) A methaqualone tablet (used as a recreational drug).
* A piece of wood or metal, usually flat and elongated, turning on a nail or screw, to fasten something, such as a door.
* A globule of metal remaining on an assay cupel or in a crucible, after fusion.
* A knob; a small ball; a small, roundish mass.
* A small white blotch on a cat's coat.
* (UK, archaic) A unit of length equal to $^1$⁄$_{12}$ inch.
* (generally with the) The means for initiating a nuclear strike or similar cataclysmic occurrence.
** 1986, "Weird Al" Yankovic (lyrics and music), “Christmas at Ground Zero”, in Polka Party!‎:It's Christmas at ground zero / The button has been pressed / The radio / Just let us know / That this is not a test
* (glassblowing) The oblate spheroidal mass of glass attaching a stem to either its bowl or foot.
* (lutherie) In an instrument of the violin family, the near-semicircular shape extending from the top of the back plate of the instrument, meeting the heel of the neck.
* (lutherie) Synonym of endbutton, part of a violin-family instrument.
* (lutherie, bowmaking) Synonym of adjuster.
* The least amount of care or interest; a whit or jot.
** 1863, Sheridan Le Fanu, The House by the Churchyard:'She has heard from us this morning,' said Mr. Gamble, grinning on his watch, 'and she knows all by this time, and 'tisn't a button to her.'
** 1922, Van Tassel Sutphen, In Jeopardy:As to that I did not care a button, but I had wanted to hear about Betty, and now her name was barely mentioned.
* (television) The punchy or suspenseful line of dialogue that concludes a scene.
    Synonym: blow
** 2006, David Kukoff, Vault Guide to Television Writing Careers, page 77:One thing you definitely don't want to do is write past the button. For example, a scene's natural button might run something like this: TONY: That kind of talk is exactly what I'm talking about. Whereas an example of writing past the button would sound something like this: TONY: That kind of talk is exactly what I'm talking about. CARMELLA: Okay. 'Bye. TONY: Bye.
* (comedy) The final joke at the end of a comedic act (such as a sketch, set, or scene).
** 2002 November 8, Jean Ann Wright, “Animation Comedy and Gag Writing”, in Animation World Network‎:Scenes usually go out on a laugh line, a stinger or a button. End your script with a twist!
** 2014 June 18, Daniel Schindel, “3 Comedy Sketches that Changed Key and Peele's Lives”, in Los Angeles Magazine‎:With our show, one thing we wanted to do was give our best effort to always put a button on the scene.
** 2016 July 12, Jessica Goldstein, “How to best end a comedy sketch? It’s hard to go wrong with gruesome death”, in The Washington Post‎:Is there a best way to end a comedy sketch? Endings — or outs, or buttons as writers call them — are notoriously difficult to nail. The ideal ending needs to be satisfying and surprising while staying true to the comedic game that preceded it.
* (slang) A button man; a professional assassin.
** 1973, Mario Puzo, Francis Ford Coppola, The Godfather Part II (screenplay, second draft)
    FREDO: Mikey, why would they ever hit poor old Frankie Five-Angels? I loved that ole sonuvabitch. I remember when he was just a 'button,' when we were kids.
* The final segment of a rattlesnake's rattle.
** 1936, Laurence Monroe Klauber, A Statistical Study of the Rattlesnakes, page 26:Hardly a rattler is ever reported in the newspapers unless it is stated to have had "blank rattles and a button". But here button usually means the terminal lobe of the last rattle, even though the string may not be complete, the true button and additional rattles having been lost.
* (dated, Southern US) A clove (of garlic).
* (zoology) Pedicle; the attachment point for antlers in cervids.

##### Usage notes

For senses 2 and 3, a button is often marked by a verb rather than a noun, and the button itself is named with the verb followed by button. For example, a button to start something is generally called a start button.

##### Hypernyms

* (graphical user interface): widget

##### Hyponyms

* bachelor's button
* belly button
* billy buttons
* eject button
* fire button
* hot button
* merese
* panic button
* power button
* radio button
* red button
* shirt-button
* shoulder button
* snooze button
* start button
* stay-button
* tummy button

##### Derived terms

* bachelor's button
* bachelors button
* Barbara's buttons
* bebuttoned
* beg button
* beggar's buttons
* bell button
* bellybutton
* belly button
* belly-button
* belly button ring
* big red button
* billy buttons
* blue button
* boss button
* boy in buttons
* bright as a button
* bright as a new button
* button accordion
* buttonball
* button bar
* buttonbush
* button cactus
* button cell
* button day
* button ear
* buttonfront
* button grass
* buttonhole
* button-hole
* button hole
* buttonhook
* buttonize
* buttonless
* button lift
* buttonlike
* button lock
* buttonmaker
* buttonmaking
* button man
* button mangrove
* button mash
* button masher
* button-mashing
* button mashing
* buttonmould
* button mushroom
* button nose
* buttonologist
* buttonology
* button-on
* button plant
* button punch
* button quail
* button-quail
* buttonquail
* button scurvy
* button seal
* button smuggler
* button snakeroot
* button spider
* button squash
* button stick
* button-up
* button up one's lip
* buttonweed
* buttonwillow
* buttonwood
* button wrinklewort
* buttony
* buzz button
* call button
* campaign button
* care a button
* cheese button
* chest button
* chicken button
* chicory button
* collar button
* collar-button
* collar-button abscess
* cough button
* cute as a button
* disbutton
* Dorset button
* electric button
* end-button
* endbutton
* end button
* fire button
* fussbutton
* hamburger button
* happy button
* high button shoe
* hit the button
* hold by the button
* hot-button
* hot button
* keybutton
* love button
* meow button
* multibutton
* multibuttoned
* Murphy's button
* neat as a button
* nuclear button
* on the button
* option button
* panic button
* placebo button
* prebutton
* press button
* press someone's buttons
* push-button, push button, pushbutton
* push someone's buttons
* push the right buttons
* Quaker buttons
* radial button
* radio button
* reset button
* sew buttons
* sew buttons on your underwear
* shirt-button
* sleeve-button
* snooze button
* spin button
* Start button
* stay-button
* Szechuan button
* tang button
* thistle button
* tich button
* tummy button
* turn button
* wild bachelor's button, wild bachelor's-button

##### Descendants

* → German: Button
* → Hindi: बटन (baṭan)
* → Gujarati: બટન (baṭan)
* → Korean: 버튼 (beoteun)
* → Maori: pātene
* → Marathi: बटण (baṭaṇ)
* → Urdu: بَٹَن (baṭan)

##### Translations

    The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

##### See also

* switch
* toggle
* trigger

### Etymology 2

From Middle English butonen, botonen, from the noun (see above).

#### Verb

button (third-person singular simple present buttons, present participle buttoning, simple past and past participle buttoned)
* (transitive) To fasten with a button. [from late 14th c.]
** 1838 March – 1839 October, Charles Dickens, chapter 50, in The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published 1839, →OCLC:He was a tall, fat, long-bodied man, buttoned up to the throat in a tight green coat.
* (intransitive) To be fastened by a button or buttons.
    The coat will not button.
* (Can we clean up this sense?) (informal) To stop talking.

##### Derived terms

* buttonable
* button-down
* buttoner
* button one's lip
* button up
* button it
* button through
* misbutton
* rebutton
* unbutton

##### Translations
### Further reading

* button on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

### Anagrams

* not but

## Middle English
### Noun

button
* Alternative form of botoun