buttonhole

noun

1. A hole through which a button is pushed to secure a garment or some part of one.
2. (British)A flower worn in a buttonhole for decoration.
3. (British, attributive)A flower worn in a buttonhole for decoration.
4. A small slot-like cut or incision, made for example by an accident with the scalpel.

   “The usual cause of conjunctival buttonholes is penetration of the tissue by the tip of a sharp instrument […]”

5. The mouth, nose or eyes of a tiny appearance.
6. (obsolete)vagina, coin slot.
7. The butthole (anus).

verb

1. (colloquial, transitive)To detain (a person) in conversation against their will.

   “He backed Mr. Lykins against an iron fence, buttonholed him, fastened him with his eye, like the ancient mariner, and proceeded to unfold his narrative as placidly and peacefully as if we were all stretched comfortably in a blossomy summer meadow instead of being persecuted by a wintry midnight tempest: […]”

   “Hiro and Chuck grab the closest thing they can find to a corner table. Hiro buttonholes a waiter and surreptitiously orders a pitcher of Pub Special, mixed half and half with nonalcoholic beer.”

   “He buttonholed people on the street and related details of his child’s miraculous progress without even prefacing his remarks with the hypocritical but polite: “I know everyone thinks their own child is smart but—””

   “Here they are, the brainless few we had been raised to pity and fear, the Stone Age oafs and the seething runts and the ominous, swaggering weightlifters, buttonholing kids like me out on Chancellor Avenue and telling us to keep our baseball bats at the ready in case we were called in the night to take to the streets [...]”

2. (ambitransitive)To cut one or more buttonholes (in).
3. (transitive)To sew by buttonhole stitch.
4. (archaic, transitive)To make a small slot-like incision in (intentionally or unintentionally).
5. (rare, transitive)To apply a flowery formation in.
6. (archaic, intransitive, rare)To attain buttonhole-like formations on cutting.

   “Furze cut it himself after his dinner, with great care and concentrated solemnity, finding the loaf rather too new and the knife too blunt for the carving of slices of ideal thinness. The beastly things would buttonhole!”