Word.ws English Dictionary

push the right buttons

push the right buttons verb: to take suitable actions, or exert suitable influence on people, to achieve some desired result.

Verb

push the right buttons (third-person singular simple present pushes the right buttons, present participle pushing the right buttons, simple past and past participle pushed the right buttons)

  1. (informal) To take suitable actions, or exert suitable influence on people, to achieve some desired result.

Forms of push the right buttons

third-person singular presentpushes the right buttons
present participlepushing the right buttons
past participlepushed the right buttons
pastpushed the right buttons

Questions about push the right buttons

What does push the right buttons mean?
Push the right buttons means to take suitable actions, or exert suitable influence on people, to achieve some desired result.
What part of speech is push the right buttons?
Push the right buttons is a verb.
What is the past tense of push the right buttons?
The past tense of push the right buttons is pushed the right buttons.

Words near push the right buttons in the dictionary

  1. push string uphill
  2. push the boat out
  3. push the edge of the envelope
  4. push the envelope
  5. push the limit
  6. push the right buttons
  7. push through
  8. push time
  9. push times
  10. push together
  11. push under

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: push the right buttons (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-push the right buttons.wav.

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