"push someone's buttons" meaning in English

See push someone's buttons in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: pushes someone's buttons [present, singular, third-person], pushing someone's buttons [participle, present], pushed someone's buttons [participle, past], pushed someone's buttons [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*|head=push someone's buttons}} push someone's buttons (third-person singular simple present pushes someone's buttons, present participle pushing someone's buttons, simple past and past participle pushed someone's buttons)
  1. (informal) To do specific things to anger someone (or, less commonly, to sexually arouse or otherwise elicit a strong reaction from them), especially intentionally or maliciously. Tags: informal Synonyms: trigger (english: to spark a response), press someone's buttons Related terms: get on someone's nerves, pet peeve, push the right buttons Translations (Translations): taper sur le système (French), buscarle las cosquillas (Spanish)

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for push someone's buttons meaning in English (2.7kB)

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  "forms": [
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      "form": "pushes someone's buttons",
      "tags": [
        "present",
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    {
      "form": "pushing someone's buttons",
      "tags": [
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    },
    {
      "form": "pushed someone's buttons",
      "tags": [
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        "past"
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    },
    {
      "form": "pushed someone's buttons",
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  "head_templates": [
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        "head": "push someone's buttons"
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      "name": "en-verb"
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  "lang_code": "en",
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      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "You really knew how to push my buttons.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2019 April 10, Cheryl Maguire, “How to Stop Thinking Your Teen Is ‘Pushing Your Buttons’”, in The New York Times, →ISSN",
          "text": "I end up cleaning up after her, which I’ve repeatedly told her makes me upset. She’s a smart, talented kid. So why does she keep pushing my buttons?",
          "type": "quotation"
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      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To do specific things to anger someone (or, less commonly, to sexually arouse or otherwise elicit a strong reaction from them), especially intentionally or maliciously."
      ],
      "id": "en-push_someone's_buttons-en-verb-JPaz24ct",
      "links": [
        [
          "anger",
          "anger"
        ],
        [
          "arouse",
          "arouse"
        ],
        [
          "elicit",
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        ],
        [
          "intentional",
          "intentional"
        ],
        [
          "malicious",
          "malicious"
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      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal) To do specific things to anger someone (or, less commonly, to sexually arouse or otherwise elicit a strong reaction from them), especially intentionally or maliciously."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "get on someone's nerves"
        },
        {
          "word": "pet peeve"
        },
        {
          "word": "push the right buttons"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "english": "to spark a response",
          "word": "trigger"
        },
        {
          "word": "press someone's buttons"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "informal"
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      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "taper sur le système"
        },
        {
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "buscarle las cosquillas"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "push someone's buttons"
}
{
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    {
      "form": "pushed someone's buttons",
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      "name": "en-verb"
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  "lang_code": "en",
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      "word": "get on someone's nerves"
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    {
      "word": "pet peeve"
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    {
      "word": "push the right buttons"
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          "text": "You really knew how to push my buttons.",
          "type": "example"
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        {
          "ref": "2019 April 10, Cheryl Maguire, “How to Stop Thinking Your Teen Is ‘Pushing Your Buttons’”, in The New York Times, →ISSN",
          "text": "I end up cleaning up after her, which I’ve repeatedly told her makes me upset. She’s a smart, talented kid. So why does she keep pushing my buttons?",
          "type": "quotation"
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      ],
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        "To do specific things to anger someone (or, less commonly, to sexually arouse or otherwise elicit a strong reaction from them), especially intentionally or maliciously."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "anger",
          "anger"
        ],
        [
          "arouse",
          "arouse"
        ],
        [
          "elicit",
          "elicit"
        ],
        [
          "intentional",
          "intentional"
        ],
        [
          "malicious",
          "malicious"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal) To do specific things to anger someone (or, less commonly, to sexually arouse or otherwise elicit a strong reaction from them), especially intentionally or maliciously."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "informal"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "english": "to spark a response",
      "word": "trigger"
    },
    {
      "word": "press someone's buttons"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "taper sur le système"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "buscarle las cosquillas"
    }
  ],
  "word": "push someone's buttons"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-01 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.