button-down
Học thuậtThân thiện
Definition
- Adjective:
- Having the ends of the collar fastened down by buttons: Describes a style of shirt where the collar points are secured to the shirt body with small buttons.
- Unimaginatively conventional, conservative, or staid: Describes a person, attitude, or environment that is extremely conventional, formal, or resistant to change.
Usage and Examples
Literal meaning (shirt style):
- He prefers a classic button-down shirt for business meetings.
- The button-down collar is a staple of preppy fashion.
Figurative meaning (conventional attitude):
- The company's button-down culture discourages creative risk-taking.
- Despite the industry's creativity, his approach remained button-down.
Advanced Usage
- The term can be used attributively (before a noun) or predicatively (after a linking verb).
- Attributive: a button-down executive.
- Predicative: The office atmosphere is very button-down.
Variants and Related Words
- Button-down shirt (n.): The specific garment. Often used as a compound noun, but the core adjective "button-down" modifies "shirt."
- Buttoned-down (adj.): A variant spelling, especially common in the figurative sense. (e.g., ).
Synonyms
- Literal: buttoned-collar.
- Figurative: conventional, conservative, staid, formal, strait-laced.
Antonyms
- Figurative: unconventional, creative, innovative, casual, Bohemian.
Notes
- The hyphen is typically used when the term functions as a compound adjective (e.g., ). When used figuratively, it is sometimes written as "buttoned-down."
- The figurative sense derives from the association of the button-down shirt style with traditional, conservative professions and attitudes.
Adjective
- of a shirt; having the ends of the collar fastened down by buttons
- Brooks Brothers button-down shirts
- unimaginatively conventional
- a colorful character in the buttoned-down, dull-grey world of business- Newsweek