The English word button comes from the Old French bouton, meaning a bud or a round knob that pushes out, which traces back to bouter, meaning to thrust or push, so a button is literally something that sticks out.

English adopted the word around 1300 as a term for a clothing fastener, and the same root shows up in words like boutonniere and in the phrase belly button.

Buttons actually existed long before they were used to fasten clothes.

Decorative buttons made from shell have been found in the Indus Valley dating back to around 2000 BC, making them older than many inventions, but for a long time people still closed their clothing with pins, brooches, laces, and belts instead.

Buttons only became practical fasteners in 13th-century Europe, once buttonholes began to appear, probably first in Germany.

The buttonhole was the real turning point, since it gave people a secure way to attach one side of a garment to the other, and it paired especially well with the more fitted, tailored clothing that came into fashion in the 14th century, letting garments close snugly in a way that loose robes, pins, or clasps couldn’t match.

Over time, buttons became more than functional.

Elaborate ones made from precious metals, glass, shell, and other costly materials turned into a luxury trade, especially in France, where mother-of-pearl buttons in particular were once prized as status symbols.

Military uniforms also used distinctive buttons to identify a soldier’s regiment, which in some cases helped authorities spot deserters, and there are stories, though hard to verify individually, of metal uniform buttons deflecting bullets during World War I.

There’s also a long standing habit of placing men’s buttons on the right and women’s on the left, commonly explained by the idea that men usually dressed themselves while wealthy women were often dressed by servants, though the exact origin isn’t fully certain.

Buttons have been made from nearly every material imaginable, including shell, bone, horn, wood, glass, metal, coconut, and plastic, with celluloid buttons appearing in the late 1800s and making decorative buttons far cheaper and more widely available.

Even after zippers arrived and took over many fastening jobs, buttons stayed popular for being familiar, versatile, and decorative, and button-fly jeans, which predate the zippered version, are still valued today for their retro look and durability.

Designers also use buttons deliberately as a style choice, sometimes oversized, mismatched, purely decorative, or left intentionally unfastened.

Buttons have left their mark on language and culture well beyond clothing.

Collecting them is known as philobutonism, and the Smithsonian holds a collection of more than 10,000 examples, valued for their materials, designs, makers, and ties to fashion history.

The button mushroom takes its name from its small, rounded cap, which resembles a button, and in the digital world, a clickable on-screen control borrows the same name from the physical object people press.