care a button

present singular third person cares a button · participle present caring a button · participle past cared a button · past cared a button

1. datedidiomaticTo care (at all).

   You’re the only chap I care a button for […]

   1922, Walter de la Mare, “Seaton’s Aunt”, in Best Stories of Walter de la Mare, London: Faber & Faber, published 1942, page 86

   4 more examples

   […] the filthy and foule desire of gaine preuailed with one of the garrison, a most wretched and desperate villaine of all men liuing to be abhorred: who being corrupted by the large and perilous offers of Ottoman, did not care a button for the safetie of his citizens, of his countrey, nor of his frendes or kinsfolkes […]

   1596, Marin Barleti, translated by Zachary Jones, The Historie of George Castriot, surnamed Scanderbeg, King of Albanie, London: William Ponsonby, Book 5, p. 180

   If you are treated ill and put on, ’Tis natural to make a Fuss; To see it and not care a Button, Is just as natural for us.

   1763, John Hall-Stevenson, A Pastoral Cordial, London: J. Hinxman, page 19

   Half-a-dozen gas-lamps out of the street wouldn't have lighted the entry too well, so you may suppose that it was pretty dark with Scrooge's dip. ¶ Up Scrooge went, not caring a button for that.

   1843 December 19, Charles Dickens, “(please specify the page number)”, in A Christmas Carol. […], London: Chapman & Hall, […], →OCLC

   Twenty years since we sat on top Of the world, amusing ourselves and sneering At other manners and customs, jeering At other nations, living in clover— Not any more. That’s done and over. No one nowadays cares a button For the upper classes—they’re dead as mutton.

   1940, Alice Duer Miller, The White Cliffs, New York: Coward-McCann, page 60

   Synonyms: becare, bother, care, concern oneself, heed, mind, reck, trouble oneself