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Buttonhole is easy to pin down as a noun referring to the slit or loop through which a button is passed to fasten something, but its shift to a verb meaning "to detain in conversation" requires some explanation. Buttonhole is an alteration of another verb now long out of use: buttonhold, which literally meant to hold on to the buttons or lapels of someone's coat when speaking to him or her. In the mid-19th century, English speakers altered the verb to buttonhole, perhaps as a result of hearing buttonhold as buttonholed. The overlap is apparent in an early instance of this spelling in an 1862 London publication called All Year Round: "The man who is button-holed, or held … and must listen to half an hour's harangue about nothing interesting."
Examples of buttonhole in a Sentence
Mohsin Sajid, Sourcing Journal, 18 Nov. 2025
Maass traced her rounds, dressed in crisp blue-and-white stripes, white muslin cap with a black ribbon, thermometer pushed through a buttonhole.
—Literary Hub, 15 Oct. 2025
Dan Beck, Rolling Stone, 14 Nov. 2025
Not long ago such an utterance would have been political suicide in a country with a pacifist identity, but her rallies were packed, and party volunteers were out en masse, distributing flyers and buttonholing passersby.
—Jeff Kingston, Time, 28 Aug. 2025
See All Example Sentences for buttonhole
Cite this Entry
“Buttonhole.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/buttonhole. Accessed 29 Nov. 2025.
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buttonhole
1 of 2 noun
buttonhole
2 of 2 verb
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