ppl. a. [UN-1 8.]
1. Not furnished with a button or buttons.
1583. Rates of Custome Ho., F iv. Caps vnbuttoned English the dosen xvi s. viij d.
1902. Daily Chron., 8 Dec., 3/6. Woe to the man who has to encounter an enemy like M. Merignac with a duelling sword or an unbuttoned foil.
2. Not fastened with buttons; having the buttons unfastened.
In some instances possibly f. UNBUTTON v.
1592. Greene, Courtier, D iv b. A thredbare blacke coate vnbuttond before vpon the brest.
1600. Shaks., A. Y. L., III. ii. 398. Your hose should be vngarter’d, your bonnet vnbanded, your sleeue vnbutton’d.
1645. Milton, Colast., Wks. 1851, IV. 368. This is not for an unbutton’d fellow to discuss in the Garret, at his tressle.
1711. Addison, Spect., No. 129, ¶ 9. His new silk Waistcoat, which was unbutton’d in several Places to let us see that he had a clean Shirt on.
1790. J. C. Smyth, in Med. Commun., II. 477. I … found him … sitting in a great chair with the collar of his shirt unbuttoned.
1832. Lytton, Eugene A., I. ii. The one short, dry, fragile, and betraying a love of ease in his unbuttoned vest.
1854. A. Fonblanque, in Life & Labours, vi. (1874), 513. If he had seen the same officer with an unbuttoned jacket, or any other disorder in his dress.
fig. 1898. Westm. Gaz., 27 Oct., 4/1. An example of the master in an unwontedly unbuttoned mood.
