Meanings
- pluralplural of button
- colloquialA remote control.
- colloquialdatedA boy servant, or page.
A Custum' Us officer knows what to do with his Buttons, "said the Jack , repeating the obnoxious word with the greatest contempt , “when they comes betwixt him and his own light[…]"
1860 December – 1861 August, Charles Dickens, Great Expectations […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, […], published October 1861, →OCLC - slangA policeman.
‘Go ahead, call the buttons. You'll get a big reaction from it.’
1939, Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep, Penguin, published 2011, page 78 - colloquialSynonym of marbles (“sanity; mental faculties”).
That night in his room before he'd left for New Orleans, Lewis had behaved like he didn't have all his buttons.
2006, Frances Hunter, To the Ends of the Earth: The Last Journey of Lewis & Clark, page 842 more examples
And we've got that other boy now, Ganesh something, I met him once, and I didn't understand a word he was saying, but the child seems to have all his buttons.
2004, Jane Stevenson, The Empress of the Last Days, page 109In the quaint vernacular of old Dad Peppin, Zion Jore might not have all his buttons, but he had more of what he did have than most men—more imagination to conceive a plot, more daring to carry it out, no fear to hamper him, […]
2018, Cherry Wilson, Outcasts of Picture RocksSynonyms: marbles
- A small South African plant of the genus Conophytum, with button-like succulent leaves covering its exterior.
- indicativepresentsingularthird personthird-person singular simple present indicative of button
Synonyms & antonyms
nounSynonym of marbles (“sanity; mental faculties”).
Cite this entry
buttons. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/buttons
“buttons.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/buttons. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “buttons,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/buttons.
Source: buttons on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.