shirt-button

English

Noun

shirt-button (plural shirt-buttons)

  1. A button for a shirt, usually a man's.
    • 1814, Jane Austen, Mansfield Park, Chapter 24,
      […] 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, 1977, pp. 219-220,
      A couple of his shirtbuttons were missing, the dark hair of his chest protruding through the gap.
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