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

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

“Keith defined the industry he covered,” wrote Mr. Murdoch, whom Mr. Kelly in fact was known to buttonhole boldly in elevators and shake down for information like anyone else.

From New York Times ● Jul. 31, 2021

Only the shirt beneath it was black, and he had a black feather in his buttonhole.

From "Inkheart" by Cornelia Funke

His red coat with black trim, red waistcoat with hand-stitched buttonholes and gold regimental buttons, and white breeches “represent the only complete uniform of the Revolutionary war.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 18, 2025

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

His brown hair is tousled, his shirt buttons in the wrong buttonholes.

From "Insurgent" by Veronica Roth

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 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

Resident Caroline Aguirre, a retired parole agent, said she buttonholed one courier trying to deliver a bag marked with the name James on it and explained the order wasn’t for her.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 15, 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

When he got back ashore, he walked up to a reporter at the shell house, buttonholed him, and rendered a startling verdict: “Tom Bolles has a fine rough-water boat,” he said quietly but forcefully.

From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown

Portsmouth Hospitals University NHS Trust told the BBC that while UK vascular access guidelines do not recommend buttonholing, they "do not specifically state that it is contraindicated".

From BBC ● Mar. 15, 2024

They’ve had mixed success buttonholing people on the street to pose.

From Washington Post ● Mar. 21, 2023

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

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 10, 2023

Desperate for resolution, the family banded together with others to form the National League of POW/MIA Families, lobbying politicians and buttonholing generals in the halls of the Capitol to demand action.

From New York Times ● Oct. 5, 2021

Take the legacy of 60s poets, for example, who cant help but write like him; syntactically careering around his blizzard of words, elbow-jolting crazily, clutching at each others earmuffs, buttonholing opportunity.

From Unmanned by Oliver, Stephen