the.com/button
the tiny tyrant you press to feel briefly, gloriously in control of something
means a small disc or knob that fastens clothing through a loop or hole, or a control you press to operate a device.
from From Old French 'boton,' meaning a bud or knob — something that pushes or sprouts outward. The root is the verb 'bouter,' to push or thrust (a cousin of the same source that gives us 'butt,' as in to ram with the head). So a button was originally named not for what it does in cloth but for its shape: a little bud, swelling out from the surface, waiting to be pressed.
- crosswalk lie
- many pedestrian buttons do nothing, placebos for the impatient
- ancient origin
- buttons predate buttonholes by roughly a thousand years
- door close
- most elevator close buttons are deactivated by design
- status symbol
- medieval buttons were jewelry, sewn on by the dozens
- nuclear myth
- no single big red button launches the missiles
qwest button — world's largest button in artesian, south dakota - 38 feet in diameter, weighs 22,600 pounds
button gwinnett signature — signer of declaration of independence whose name inspired the word 'button' in some colonial contexts, georgia 1776