shirt-button

English

Alternative forms
  • shirt button, shirtbutton

Noun

shirt-button (plural shirt-buttons)

  1. A button for a shirt, usually a man's.
    • 1814 July, [Jane Austen], chapter XXIV, in Mansfield Park: […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC:
      […] though Mrs. Norris could fidget about the room, and disturb everybody in quest of two needlefuls of thread or a second-hand shirt button, in the midst of her nephew’s account of a shipwreck or an engagement, everybody else was attentive […]
    • 1853, Herman Melville, Bartleby, the Scrivener‎:
      He had frequently restored to me sixpences and shillings carelessly dropped upon the floor, for I am apt to be very reckless in such shirt-button affairs [i.e., involving things of low value].
    • 1975, André Brink, An Instant in the Wind‎, New York: William Morrow, published 1977, pages 219–220:
      A couple of his shirtbuttons were missing, the dark hair of his chest protruding through the gap.

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