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buttonholing

n. The act of detaining someone in conversation against his or her will. vb. (present participle of buttonhole English)

Usage examples of "buttonholing".

It was men, and not women, who invented such sordid and literal faiths as those of the Mennonites, Dunkards, Wesleyans and Scotch Presbyterians, with their antipathy to beautiful ritual, their obscene buttonholing of God, their great talent for reducing the ineffable mystery of religion to a mere bawling of idiots.

The President of the United States was continuing to pursue his Rose Garden strategy and would not be in attendance tonight, though some of his handlers were already cruising the press room, buttonholing journalists and trying to apply some prespin to the event.

Jones was drunker than anybody, reeling about the room, good-naturedly banging the men on the back, kissing the ladies' hands, singing songs rather too ribald for the tastes of the church crowdalthough like good Christians they forgave him when they discovered the quality of his liquorand buttonholing community leaders to express his confidence in the American way and the blessings it had brought to him on this Christmas Eve.

But I had never been in headquarters, it being the sort of a buttonholing place where my impersonation might be easily breached.

I’ll spend the rest of my life, I suppose, like some persecuted fanatic, buttonholing people to convince them I was innocent, to justify my few months in office.

The Vice President took to buttonholing people in the West Wing and telling them he had been misquoted, but it was a bit late for that.

By four in the morning the word had grown like a tumor in his consciousness and he wandered around the fire, buttonholing people and asking, "What would you do if I said I was gonna shunt you?

He passed on, buttonholed by every one, himself buttonholing his acquaintances, beginning over and over again his tale and his protestations, showing his pockets turned inside out to prove that he had nothing in them.