care a button

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

Verb

care a button (third-person singular simple present cares a button, present participle caring a button, simple past and past participle cared a button)

1. (idiomatic, dated, chiefly in the negative) To care (at all).

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:care

   • 1596, Marin Barleti, translated by Zachary Jones, The Historie of George Castriot, surnamed Scanderbeg, King of Albanie‎^[1], London: William Ponsonby, Book 5, p. 180:

     […] the filthy and foule desire of gaine preuailed with one of the garrison, a most wretched and desperate villaine of all men liuing to be abhorred: who being corrupted by the large and perilous offers of Ottoman, did not care a button for the safetie of his citizens, of his countrey, nor of his frendes or kinsfolkes […]

   • 1763, John Hall-Stevenson, A Pastoral Cordial‎^[2], London: J. Hinxman, page 19:

     If you are treated ill and put on,
     ’Tis natural to make a Fuss;
     To see it and not care a Button,
     Is just as natural for us.

   • 1843 December 19, Charles Dickens, “(please specify the page number)”, in A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, London: Chapman & Hall, […], →OCLC:

     Half-a-dozen gas-lamps out of the street wouldn't have lighted the entry too well, so you may suppose that it was pretty dark with Scrooge's dip. ¶ Up Scrooge went, not caring a button for that.

   • 1922, Walter de la Mare, “Seaton’s Aunt”, in Best Stories of Walter de la Mare‎^[3], London: Faber & Faber, published 1942, page 86:

     You’re the only chap I care a button for […]

   • 1940, Alice Duer Miller, The White Cliffs‎^[4], New York: Coward-McCann, page 60:

     Twenty years since we sat on top
     Of the world, amusing ourselves and sneering
     At other manners and customs, jeering
     At other nations, living in clover—
     Not any more. That’s done and over.
     No one nowadays cares a button
     For the upper classes—they’re dead as mutton.