button man

See also: buttonman

English

Etymology

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

Noun

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

professional assassin — see contract killer