bell button

bell button (plural bell buttons)

1. A small, round mechanical device which, when pressed, rings a bell to announce one's presence or call a servant, assistant, etc.
   • 1921, B. M. Bower, Sawtooth Ranch, London: Methuen, Chapter 2,

     She hated the row of key-and-mail boxes on the wall, with the bell buttons above each apartment number. She hated the jangling of the hall telephone, the scurrying to answer, the prodding of whichever bell button would summon the tenant asked for by the caller.

   • 1931, Dashiell Hammett, The Glass Key, New York: Knopf, Chapter 1,

     He pressed the bell-button set in the frame of a door marked 611. The door was opened immediately by a diminutive girl […]

   • 1951, Arthur Koestler, The Age of Longing, New York: Macmillan, Part 1, Chapter 9, pp. 156-157,

     “ […] bring me some brandy.” “That’s the room-service, sir,” said the valet, giving the waiter’s bell-button a vicious push as he went out.

   • 1999, John le Carré, Single & Single, New York: Scribner, Chapter 12, p. 221,

     K. Altremont, he read, shielding his eyes from the rain while he studied the illuminated bell buttons.

2. A button in the form of a jingle bell, used as a fastener or decoration on a piece of clothing.
   • 1775, James Adair, The History of the American Indians, London: Edward and Charles Dilly, Chapter , Argument 17, p. 171,

     […] the young warriors now frequently fasten bell-buttons, or pieces of tinkling brass to their maccaseenes, and to the outside of their boots, instead of the old turky-cock-spurs which they formerly used.

   • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, Chapter 6,

     Now when a country dandy like this takes it into his head to make a distinguished reputation, and joins the great whale-fishery, you should see the comical things he does upon reaching the seaport. In bespeaking his sea-outfit, he orders bell-buttons to his waistcoats; straps to his canvas trowsers.

   • 1891, Charles King, “From ‘The Point’ to the Plains” in Starlight Ranch and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier, Philadelphia: Lippincott, p. 119,

     I haven’t the advantage of being a girl with a brother and a baker’s dozen of beaux in bell buttons and gray.

   • 1920, Robert W. Chambers, The Slayer of Souls, New York: Doran, Chapter 6, p. 6,

     “I’m quite ready now,” she said calmly, and drew the Chinese slippers over her bare feet and passed a silken loop over the silver bell buttons on her right shoulder.

• (device): buzzer, doorbell