button man

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See also: buttonman

English

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Etymology

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(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Noun

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button man (plural button men)

  1. (slang) A contract killer; a professional assassin.
    • 2000, James Carville, Stickin': The Case for Loyalty, page 13:
      I was called a "buffoon" in the paper of record, the New York Times, and the Washington Post described me fondly as "Clinton's gunsel," his button man
    • 2000, Stuart Woods, Worst Fears Realized, page 177:
      "Twenty years ago, he was Little Pete Drago, a button man for the boys on Mulberry Street. He's probably got twenty notches on his piece
    • 2005, Jeffery Deaver, Garden of Beasts: A Novel of Berlin 1936, page 44:
      But death is never symmetrical and tidy, and the button man had nothing to say.

Translations

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