buttoned-down

buttoned-down

1. Having or fastened together by buttons, as of the collar of a shirt. Primarily heard in US, South Africa. We're going to a nice restaurant for dinner, so be sure to wear a buttoned-down shirt, please!
2. Conservative, unimaginatively conventional, or old-fashioned, as of a person's clothing, attitude, behavior, or beliefs. He spent his entire adult life as a buttoned-down clerk, so when he turned 65, he decided it was time for adventure!
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
See also:
  • button-down
  • dicky dirt
  • blue-collar staff
  • blue-collar worker
  • get hot under the collar
  • feel (one's) collar
  • feel someone's collar
  • lose (one's) shirt
  • lose one's shirt
  • lose shirt
References in periodicals archive
"I guess as a white heterosexual man living in the United States, I should feel like I'm part of the big accepted group," concedes Sarsgaard, who earned his greatest pre-Kinsey acclaim for portraying buttoned-down New Republic editor Chuck Lane, who uncovered the pathological fabrications of journalist Stephen Glass, in 2003's fact-based Shattered Gloss.
That's when the buttoned-down suit-and-tie crowd really cut loose.
So instead of playing the free-spirited Becky she plays the more buttoned-down and unlikeable fiancee Karen.
He's a dandy who lived in buttoned-down New York; in Marseilles, he becomes more flamboyant.
This is a common scene across the South: people inveighing against Washington, muttering--in the most respectable, buttoned-down and bourbon-sipping company--about the Clintons and the liberals.
On TV, Jeeves and Wooster made him a thinking man's buttoned-down sex symbol for fans on both sides of the Atlantic.
Sun President and CEO Paul Godfrey couldn't be more different from buttoned-down Eyton, nor the culture at the flagship Toronto Sun itself--a Great White Northern version of USA Today--more of a contrast to conventional Edper.
A little less buttoned-down, blow-dried primness might prompt voters to cut members of Congress a little more slack.
Successful middle-aged Madrid lawyer Daniel (Fernando Guillen Cuervo) strays from his buttoned-down life and circle of posh queeny friends to go nuts for strapping refugee Kyril (Dritan Biba), a standout among the hordes of hot politically displaced Eastern European bucks flooding Spain in hope of a better tomorrow.
He graduated law school but rejected the buttoned-down legal world for advertising.
I find it really difficult to generalize because gay people are all so different: They're conservative and they're liberal and they're right-wing and left-wing and flamboyant and buttoned-down. So as far as whether gay people like my music, I hope so.
For Songcatcher she has invented a buttoned-down musicologist named Dr.
MACKENZIE ASTIN will be popping up on First Years, the NBC mid-season dramedy (premiering March 19), as Warren Harrison, the buttoned-down but very out associate at a San Francisco law firm.