Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb Present participle of buttonhole.
  • noun The act of detaining someone in conversation against his or her will.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • CHAIN AND SURFACE STITCHES -- the latter a kind of buttonholing, only occasionally worked _in_to the stuff.

    Art in Needlework A Book about Embroidery Mary Buckle 1877

  • I spent the rest of the day, indeed much of the rest of the conference, buttonholing leading nuclear figures of this and other nations with that same forbidden question: what happens if deterrence fails and you have to decide whether to kill millions of innocent civilians because you threatened to?

    How the End Begins Ron Rosenbaum 2011

  • This was roughly equivalent to inviting the fox into the henhouse, because there was nothing to prevent us from buttonholing the likes of the 50 heads of state heralded to be attending the CGI, as well as Morgan Freeman , Tony Blair, Chelsea Clinton , Trudie Styler and Sting, and writer Dave Eggers —not that I spotted any of them.

    Brush With Greatness Ralph Gardner Jr. 2011

  • For fully paid-up subscribers to the cult of golf, I am told the 3D pictures give a better idea of what faces the player in terms of his shot but for golf agnostics like myself the excellent analyst Butch Harmon, who does that Sky thing of buttonholing you by staring straight down the barrel of the camera, performs that function perfectly well.

    Sky's 3D golf coverage leaves sales pitch out in the rain Martin Kelner 2010

  • Much as I'd love it, I can't see Faber & Faber's editor buttonholing John Bishop anytime soon – while the collected transcripts of Lee Evans would provide only a fraction of what makes Evans an eye-popping spectacle when live.

    Standup has grown up – but that doesn't mean it is great literature 2011

  • He was fond of buttonholing American diplomats to lecture them about their double standard.

    Fallout Catherine Collins 2011

  • I spent the rest of the day, indeed much of the rest of the conference, buttonholing leading nuclear figures of this and other nations with that same forbidden question: what happens if deterrence fails and you have to decide whether to kill millions of innocent civilians because you threatened to?

    How the End Begins Ron Rosenbaum 2011

  • He was fond of buttonholing American diplomats to lecture them about their double standard.

    Fallout Catherine Collins 2011

  • Crisscrossing the state in a series of rented cars, the 56-year-old Mr. Singleton has spent the better part of five months visiting obscure county GOP chairmen, befriending tea-party activists, buttonholing lawmakers in the lobby of the state Capitol, and amassing a database of potential Palin supporters.

    Activist Stirs Palin Mystery in Iowa Neil King Jr. 2011

  • Oh dear … Watch out for our boy Becks buttonholing the bridegroom's father some time on Friday and asking what that was all about, Charlie boy?

    Royalty has finally become wedded to the national sporting obsession | Frank Keating 2011

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