A.Word.A.Day --button-down

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Today's Word

button-down

PRONUNCIATION:

(BUHT-uhn-daun)

MEANING:

adjective:
1. Conservative, unimaginative, conventional, staid, repressed, etc.
2. Relating to a collar that can be fastened to the garment.
3. Relating to a garment having such a collar or having buttons from the collar to the waist.

ETYMOLOGY:

From the association of a button-down shirt with people having such an outlook. Earliest documented use: 1883. The term also appears in the form buttoned-down.

USAGE:

“Mr Golub is often brash ... has always stuck out in Amex’s button-down corporate culture.”
Don’t Leave Home Without Me; The Economist (London, UK); Jan 30, 1993.

See more usage examples of button-down in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:

I do not torture animals, and I do not support the torture of animals, such as that which goes on at rodeos: cowardly men in big hats abusing simple beasts in a fruitless search for manhood. -George Carlin, comedian, actor, and author (12 May 1937-2008)

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