Literary notes about Button (AI summary)
The word "button" appears in literature as a versatile symbol and physical object, evoking both the tangible and the metaphorical. Authors use it to denote a simple article of clothing or a fastening device—in moments when a character needs to secure a coat ([1], [2]) or activate a mechanism ([3], [4], [5]). At the same time, it becomes a figurative expression of insignificance or indifference, as in the declaration of caring "no button" about someone's actions or reputation ([6], [7], [8]). Moreover, the button often functions as a subtle marker of identity or status, whether it signifies belonging through a club pin ([9], [10]) or even enhances a character's peculiar charm by drawing attention to personal style ([11], [12]).
- The poles are passed through the sleeves on each side, the coats are buttoned up with the button side down.
— from Boy Scouts Handbook by Boy Scouts of America - On page 146, change buttonholes to button-holes.
— from Little Women; Or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy by Louisa May Alcott - Almost involuntarily, only to put an end to it, his finger felt for the button of the electric bell in the ante-room.
— from The Trial by Franz Kafka - And he pressed an electric button, transmitting an order to the crew's quarters.
— from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: An Underwater Tour of the World by Jules Verne - He pressed a button concealed in the wall, and the door opened of itself.
— from The innocence of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton - Up Scrooge went, not caring a button for that.
— from A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas by Charles Dickens - Now, I don’t care a button what you do to me , because I don’t affect to be anybody.
— from Hard Times by Charles Dickens - Though, for his own part, he did not care a button for cock-fighting.
— from Silas Marner by George Eliot - On the lower edge of it he wore a high-school button, a class button, and a fraternity pin.
— from Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis - And then the old gentleman clapped his hand to his brow, and cried out that I must be the lad with the silver button.
— from Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson - He was in love with every button on his coat, every nail on his fingers—absolutely in love with them, and he looked it!
— from White Nights and Other Stories by Fyodor Dostoyevsky - Upon her head boards, in large gilt letters, he read “Bouton de Rose,”—Rose-button, or Rose-bud; and this was the romantic name of this aromatic ship.
— from Moby Dick; Or, The Whale by Herman Melville
