button one's lip
"button-one-s-lip" is a 13-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“button one's lip” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 16
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To remain silent, especially in order to keep a secret or to avoid saying something inappropriate.
Corpus desk
Index EN-button-one-s-lip · button one's lip · English
button one's lip · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 16 letters
- VOW-5 5 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "B" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | button one's lip |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 16 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “button one's lip” in English
Rare enough to double-check
button one's lip is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To remain silent, especially in order to keep a secret or to avoid saying something inappropriate.".
button one's lip has no tracked misspelling variants, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct English form is button one's lip, spelled B-U-T-T-O-N- -O-N-E-'-S- -L-I-P.
Definition
- 1To remain silent, especially in order to keep a secret or to avoid saying something inappropriate.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how button one's lip appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
"Yes," put in Solomon. "I've been tipped off to this guy Mars, and you'd better tell him to button up his lip and not start anything."
"We advised John not to talk, to button his lip, but he talked anyway."
Synonyms
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.