unbutton

present singular third person unbuttons · participle present unbuttoning · participle past unbuttoned · past unbuttoned

1. ambitransitiveTo open (something) by undoing its buttons.

   "Mr Baxter, I think?" said the latter. He had laid aside his dripping umbrella and was unbuttoning overcoat and coat to reach an inner pocket.

   1914, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], Max Carrados

   1 more example

   Being now too high wound up to bear a delay, he unbutton'd, and drawing out the engine of love-assaults, drove it currently, as at a ready-made breach

   Fanny Hill

   1749, [John Cleland], “(Please specify the letter or volume)”, in Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure [Fanny Hill], London: […] [Thomas Parker] for G. Fenton [i.e., Fenton and Ralph Griffiths] […], →OCLC

2. ergativeintransitiveTo come open by having its buttons unfastened.

   He was so muscled and firm, and the canvas shirt under his jacket unbuttoned easily.

   2010, Janet Chapman, Tempt Me If You Can, page 70