buttonhook

plural buttonhooks

1. historicalA hook for pulling the buttons of gloves and shoes through the buttonholes.First known use 18th c.

   Hustlers used to sell shoes like that to the greenhorns fifty years ago with a buttonhook for a bonus.

   1976 September, Saul Bellow, Humboldt’s Gift, New York, N.Y.: Avon Books, →ISBN, page 370

   1 more example

   ‘I'm sorry we are so late,’ he was saying. ‘We couldn't find a button-hook, so it took us a long time to button our boots.’

   1920, DH Lawrence, Women in Love, Vintage, published 2008, page 14

2. American footballA play in which the receiver runs straight downfield, then turns back toward the line of scrimmage.First known use 20th c.

   Yet the Bears never set up the deep patterns with a turn-in or a buttonhook[…].

   1988 January 15, Ted Cox, “The Sports Section”, in Chicago Reader

3. businessA hook used to pull thread through the holes of a button.

present singular third person buttonhooks · participle present buttonhooking · participle past buttonhooked · past buttonhooked

1. American footballTo perform the buttonhook play.