blue button

plural blue buttons · alternative blue-button

1. A colony of hydrozoan polyps of the species Porpita porpita
2. UKhistoricalbusinessAn unauthorized clerk in the stock exchange.

   Then a blue button dashed to the box to pick up the call.

   1987, The Director, volume 41, number 3, page 118

   2 more examples

   Unauthorized clerks or Blue Buttons can make enquiries in the House and ask for prices but may not enter into any contract, while Red Buttons are clerks entitled to work in the Settling or checking Room.

   1954, Margaret Shelly Rix, Stock Market Economics, page 17

   When the market closed at 3.30 pm, the entire jobbing community exited the Stock Exchange, walking in procession back to their offices, followed by a file of blue buttons struggling to carry cumbersome dealing books.

   1998, John Littlewood, The Stock Market: 50 Years of Capitalism at Work, page 333