Buttonhold

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To hold a person in conversation against their will, forcing them to listen ; to seize someone by the arm or coat in order to make them pay attention
2. To corner a person and talk at length so they cannot easily leave ; to take hold of someone firmly so they will attend to what you say
3. Keeping someone trapped in a lengthy talk they would rather escape ; clutching a person by the sleeve to compel their attention

Etymology: "Buttonhold" is a compound of "button" and "hold," and its literal sense is exactly what the two parts suggest: to seize someone by the buttons of their coat so they cannot walk away. The image is physical. Someone who wanted to keep you talking would take hold of the front of your garment, and a button was the handiest thing to grab. The verbal sense grew out of that gesture. Holding a person by the buttons meant trapping them in conversation, so to buttonhold someone came to mean stopping them and speaking at length whether they wanted to listen or not. The shift from grabbing cloth to grabbing attention happened without any change in the word's shape, which is why the modern meaning still carries a faint trace of the physical hold.

Synonyms: buttonhole, accost