button pusher
1
5.5
- noun
- /ˈbʌtən ˈpʊʃər/
- Offensive
:
peón
- He described his job as a button pusher, performing basic tasks with little challenge.
Oh, it's like a button pusher with a lighter.
- Oh, it's like a button pusher with a lighter.
Examples
-
As a button pusher at the factory, she spent her days pressing the same controls repeatedly.
-
- That girl is a button-pusher.
-
I'm a button pusher, Spam in a can.
-
Instead of surfing, he found himself turning into a glorified technician and button-pusher.
Fiction book (2000) -
Many employees feel unfulfilled as button pushers, doing monotonous work without much engagement.
Synonyms
5
6.0
An office worker who mainly does boring routine paperwork
4
6.5
An office worker who spends most of their time doing forms and paperwork
A person who does simple office paperwork and little creative work
Antonyms
How Skilled
352
3.9
- Specialized
184
3.7
268
3.0
- Offensive
1
5.5
Surface Forms
Morphology
button + pusher
The compound 'button pusher' is directly built from 'button' and the agentive 'pusher' (from 'push'), so a learner who knows those words will infer it denotes a person who pushes buttons. The evaluative sense that the job is simple or low-skilled follows naturally from the literal image of repetitive button-pressing and is therefore readily derivable by a B1 learner.
Etymology
The noun button pusher comes from the simple image of a worker who only presses a button on a machine again and again, with the pusher part showing the basic, physical action. So it now means 'a person who does simple, repetitive tasks with little skill'.