Cute as a button.

Posted by ESC on October 24, 2000

In Reply to: Cute as a button. posted by Tarquin on October 24, 2000

: It's listed, but not in the origins section. anybody have a reference to the origin?

CUTE AS A BUTTON - "cute, charming, attractive, almost always with the connotation of being small, 1868 (from the original 1731 English meaning of 'acute' or clever). Cute as a bug's ear, 1930; cute as a bug in a rug, 1942; cute as a button, 1946. Cute and keen were two of the most overused slang words of the late 1920s and 1930s." From Listening to America: An Illustrated History of Words and Phrases from Our Lively and Splendid Past by Stuart Berg Flexner (Simon and Schuster, New York, 1992.)