a. [f. BUTTON sb. + -LESS.] Without buttons. Hence Buttonlessness.
1655. trans. Sorel’s Com. Hist. Francion, I. iii. 73. My Doublet was Buttenlesse.
1820. Blackw. Mag., VIII. 276. Ungartered stockings—buttonless array.
1846. D. Jerrold, Chron. Clovernook, Wks. IV. 380. The buttonless man remonstrates with his laundress.
1850. Bristol Mercury, 23 March, 6/2. If a man in a state of utter buttonlessness, with his sleeves flying, makes an irresistible appeal to his wife, he is always expected to be satisfied with the reply that ‘it’s all owing to the “baby.”’
1861. Wynter, Soc. Bees, 464. A man in a state of utter buttonlessness.
