Period dialogue question - Late Victorian (1890s)

[CyranoJ]

All of the online dictionaries that I just checked define "reserved" or "conservative" used in this context as "buttoned up" - most likely it does come from the notion of all the buttons being done tightly up.

From the Cambridge English Dictionary online:

formal and old-fashioned or boring:
a buttoned-down accountant/lawyer
How well will Landman's laid-back attitude merge with the more button-down style at Hughes Electronics Corp.?

Merriam-Webster agrees, so pace oggbashan I don't think it's a question of differences between American English and the Queen's.

However, you have a point, it does look like "buttoned up" will also serve. So everybody's right! How nice when that happens.

 

[oggbashan]

From the Cambridge English Dictionary online:



Merriam-Webster agrees, so pace oggbashan I don't think it's a question of differences between American English and the Queen's.

However, you have a point, it does look like "buttoned up" will also serve. So everybody's right! How nice when that happens.

You are right. I was wrong.

Buttoned-up according to the Concise Oxford Dictionary is 'to complete something satisfactorily'.

Button-down 2 (of a person) conservative or inhibited. [My note - conservative with no initial capital letter so the British meaning of conservative - 1 averse to change or innovation and holding traditional values. conservative in a political sense doesn't translate from UK to US. It means supporting the policies of the UK's Conservative party.]