different between button vs buttony

English

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /?b?tn?/, /?b?t?n/, [?b??n?], [?b??t?n?]
• Rhymes: -?t?n

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. More at butt.

Noun

button (plural buttons)

1. A knob or disc that is passed through a loop or (buttonhole), serving as a fastener. [from the mid-13th c.]

2. A mechanical device meant to be pressed with a finger in order to open or close an electric circuit or to activate a mechanism.

3. (graphical user interface) An on-screen control that can be selected as an activator of an attached function.

4. (US) A badge worn on clothes, fixed with a pin through the fabric.

5. (botany) A bud.
6. The head of an unexpanded mushroom.
7. (slang) The clitoris.
8. (curling) The center (bullseye) of the house.
9. (fencing) The soft circular tip at the end of a foil.
11. (poker) A plastic disk used to represent the person in last position in a poker game; also dealer's button.
12. (poker) The player who is last to act after the flop, turn and river, who possesses the button.
13. (archaic) A person who acts as a decoy.
14. A raised pavement marker to further indicate the presence of a pavement-marking painted stripe.
15. (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.

16. (South Africa, slang) A methaqualone tablet (used as a recreational drug).
17. A piece of wood or metal, usually flat and elongated, turning on a nail or screw, to fasten something, such as a door.
18. A globule of metal remaining on an assay cupel or in a crucible, after fusion.
19. A knob; a small ball; a small, roundish mass.
20. A small white blotch on a cat's coat.
21. (Britain, archaic) A unit of length equal to ¹?₁₂ inch.
22. The means for initiating a nuclear strike or similar cataclysmic occurrence.
23. (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.
24. (lutherie) Synonym of endbutton, part of a violin-family instrument.
25. (lutherie, bowmaking) Synonym of adjuster.
26. The least amount of care or interest; a whit or jot.
27. (comedy) The final joke at the end of a comedic act (such as a sketch, set, or scene).
28. (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.

29. The final segment of a rattlesnake's rattle.

Usage notes

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

Hypernyms

• (graphical user interface): widget

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Descendants

• ? Hindi: ??? (ba?an)
• ? Gujarati: ??? (ba?an)
• ? Korean: ?? (beoteun)
• ? Maori: p?tene
• ? Urdu: ???? (ba?an)

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)

1. (transitive) To fasten with a button. [from the late 14th c.]

   • He was a tall, fat, long-bodied man, buttoned up to the throat in a tight green coat.

2. (intransitive) To be fastened by a button or buttons.

3. (Can we clean up⁽⁺⁾ this sense?) (informal) To stop talking.

Derived terms

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

Translations

Further reading

• button on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• not but

Middle English

Noun

button

1. Alternative form of botoun

English

Etymology

button +? -y

Adjective

buttony (comparative more buttony, superlative most buttony)

1. Having a large number of buttons.
   • 1848, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair, Chapter 60,^[4]

     That carriage came round to Gillespie Street every day; that buttony boy sprang up and down from the box with Emmy’s and Jos’s visiting-cards […]

   • 1869, W. S. Gilbert, “Bob Polter” in Bab Ballads, p. 179,^[5]

     “And will my whiskers curl so tight?

     My cheeks grow smug and muttony?

     My face become so red and white?

     My coat so blue and buttony?

   • 1873, Louisa May Alcott, Work: A Story of Experience, Boston: Roberts Brothers, Chapter 16, p. 372,^[6]

     […] the inconsistent woman fell upon his buttony breast weeping copiously.

   • 1997, Kate Wheeler, “Improving My Average” in Not Where I Started From, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, p. 5,^[7]

     That night I lay on a buttony mildewed company mattress between my favorite sheets.

2. Resembling a button or buttons.
   • 1778, William Pryce, Mineralogia Cornubiensis: A Treatise of Minerals, Mines, and Mining, London: for the author, Chapter 3, p. 62,^[8]

     The Stalactical, is generally of a brassy colour; and so is the blistered buttony Ore, which is protuberant in a semi-circular form […]

   • 1924, Ford Madox Ford, Some Do Not ..., Part 1, Chapter 6,^[9]

     Tietjens paused and aimed with his hazel stick an immense blow at a tall spike of yellow mullein with its undecided, furry, glaucous leaves and its undecided, buttony, unripe lemon-coloured flowers.

   • 1938, Graham Greene, Brighton Rock, London: Heinemann, 1962, Part 2, Chapter 2, p. 83,^[10]

     […] something a little doggish peeped out of the black buttony eyes, a hint of the seraglio.

   • 1993, John Updike, “The Black Room” in Prize Stories 1995: The O. Henry Awards, New York: Doubleday, 1995, p. 279,^[11]

     […] the street had been widened at the expense of a row of sycamores whose blotched bark and buttony seed pods had seemed oddly toylike to him, as if God were an invisible playmate.

   1. (of berries) Not fully grown and matured; overly small and insufficiently juicy.
      • 1912, P. M. Kiely, Southern Fruits and Vegetables for Northern Markets, St. Louis, Missouri, p. 157,^[12]

        But the little dinky, buttony or warty berries must not be packed at all.

      • 1917, F. W. Dixon, Small Fruit Plants Annual Catalog, Holton, Kansas, p. 8,^[13]

        Some seasons a large number of berries are buttony.

   2. (of hops) Full-berried.

Synonyms

• (resembling a button): buttonlike

Noun

buttony (uncountable)

1. The manufacture of buttons.
   • 1906, Lady Dorothy Nevill, The Reminiscences of Lady Dorothy Nevill, edited by Ralph Nevill, London: Edward Arnold, Chapter 3, p. 33,^[14]

     Whenever we inquired of the village girls what their occupation was, almost invariably the quaint answer ‘We do buttony’ was given.

   • 1958, Agnes Allen, The Story of Clothes, New York: Roy Publishers, Chapter 12, p. 113,^[15]

     From this time onwards ‘buttony’, or making buttons, gradually became an important industry at which many people earned their livings.

   • 2007, Tracy Chevalier, Burning Bright, New York: Dutton, Part 4, Chapter 4, p. 126,^[16]

     […] she busied herself in the front room, rustling about in Anne Kellaway’s box of buttony materials filled with rings of various sizes, chips of sheep horn for the Singletons, a ball of flax for shaping round buttons, bits of linen for covering them, both sharp and blunt needles, and several different colors and thicknesses of thread.
2. (Scotland, games) A children’s game played with buttons.
   • 1896, J. M. Barrie, Sentimental Tommy, London: Cassell, Chapter 15, p. 172,^[17]

     She collected all her treasures, the bottle with the brass top that she had got from Shovel’s old girl, […] the pretty buttons Tommy had won for her at the game of buttony, the witchy marble, […] these and some other precious trifles she made a little bundle of and set off for Double Dykes with them, intending to leave them at the door.

Synonyms

• (manufacture of buttons): buttonmaking

References