buttonhole

"Since I was born I have never experienced stable power supply. We call ourselves the giant of Africa but we can't fix electricity," complains Mr Adah as he works on a buttonhole.

From BBC ● Jan. 31, 2023

She bounced around from L.A. factory to L.A. factory, avoiding wage theft and dodging sweatshops, before finally finding a job as a buttonhole operator on a production line, earning a decent wage.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 14, 2022

They have lunches, meet at conferences, buttonhole departmental women visitors, set up private Facebook pages and Slack channels, and are all over Twitter.

From Scientific American ● Mar. 25, 2022

This opens the floor to everyone who has ideas — not just those with the loudest voices or the chutzpah to buttonhole leaders in passing to pitch their ideas.

From Washington Post ● Mar. 24, 2022

When Aunt Anne jerked him out, a piece of string connecting a buttonhole in his shirt with a buttonhole in the front of his trousers suddenly broke.

From "Cheaper by the Dozen" by Frank B. Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey

And his simple Quaker-like garb, which contrasts with Houdon’s use of classical references in other portraits, is rendered meticulously, down to the threads of the unused buttonholes.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026

The golf stories are narrated by the “oldest member” of an upper-class golf club who buttonholes unwary younger members to regale them with his memories of golfers he has known.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 18, 2025

David Whelan said his brother must work at least eight hours a day, six days a week, on menial tasks like making buttonholes, which has caused him repetitive strain injury.

From Reuters ● Nov. 3, 2022

This he tailored into surprisingly well-fitting shirts and pants, complete with pockets, belt loops, and properly sewn buttonholes.

From Slate ● Jan. 31, 2022

I was thanking my stars that I’d learned to make nice buttonholes, when the parlor door opened and shut, and someone began to hum, Kennst Du Das Land, like a big bumblebee.

From "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott

Tegmark buttonholed Elon Musk at a 2014 MIT conference on space, after one of his students asked a question that prompted the billionaire’s now-famous quip that, with AI, “we are summoning the demon.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 4, 2026

At a moment of vulnerability, Harper is buttonholed by an old classmate named Sue.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 19, 2025

At the lighting ceremony, a non-Jewish man buttonholed the rabbi to thank him for procuring badly needed heart medicine for him during a spate of intense bombardment.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 17, 2023

Only one character in “Sign” identifies as Black, which surprised white critics who had buttonholed Hansberry as a writer devoted to Black characters.

From New York Times ● Feb. 1, 2023

The judge agreed, and for a moment Hale personally buttonholed Burkhart in the courtroom, the plot unfolding this time right in front of White.

From "Killers of the Flower Moon" by David Grann

But Mrs Kelsey's medical records, which BBC News has seen, show she suffered a great deal after she started buttonholing.

From BBC ● Mar. 15, 2024

Then Mr. Traum tried buttonholing people on the street.

From New York Times ● Jan. 31, 2024

A young William Boeing showed up day after day, buttonholing every pilot he could for a skyride.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 10, 2023

Netanyahu continued the efforts until the last moment, according to reports from the chamber, buttonholing individual members overnight as the voting continued on more than 700 individual provisions.

From Washington Post ● Nov. 4, 2021

The mayor was there, too, dressed in his best, waddling excitedly about, and buttonholing at intervals a young lieutenant of infantry, who appeared to be extremely bored.

From The Maids of Paradise by Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers