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

In the darkness of the room she was able to thread a needle and sew a buttonhole and she knew when the milk was about to boil.

From "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

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

Even in interviews, Arnhold educates, buttonholes, lobbies for her cause — graciously but inexorably.

From New York Times ● Aug. 8, 2023

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

At dawn, she rose and began cutting buttonholes and adding buttons.

From "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell

Clare buttonholed Archer and, according to his own account, the would-be candidate burst into tears and asked that the story be quashed.

From BBC ● Oct. 5, 2026

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

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

The next day, a shaken Oppie buttonholed Kamen at the lab and revealed that he had just reported the unionization meeting to Ernest, who “blew a gasket.”

From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik

Its tone and rhythms are oracular and epic, as if some ancient prophet is buttonholing you to tell you how the world has always been and will always be.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 2, 2026

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

The years of education had begun to change public opinion and the president felt that the time for women to be buttonholing unwilling men in the lobbies in an apologetic manner was past.

From The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI by Ida Husted Harper