Buttoned-up

adj

adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Conservative. figuratively
  2. 2
    Carefully planned and executed. figuratively
  3. 3
    Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see button up.

    "It should be obvious by now that most of what goes on in the Bulova commercial does not depend very much on an appeal to the rational part of the mind—the “logos” of Aristotle. If it were to depend on such an appeal to the reason, it might show the same woman, but dressed sensibly in a nice buttoned-up dress and wearing her glasses."

Adjective
  1. 1
    conservative in professional manner wordnet
  2. 2
    (British colloquial) not inclined to conversation wordnet

Example

More examples

"She's wearing a buttoned-up blouse."

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.