buffer

Someone or something that buffs (polishes and makes shiny).

Adjective

  1. Comparative form of buff: more buff.

Origin

From buff + -er.

Noun chemistry, natural sciences

  1. Anything used to isolate or minimize the effect of one thing on another.

    1. (chemistry) A solution used to stabilize the pH (acidity) of a liquid, such as by resisting a change in pH when an acid or alkali is added.

    2. (mechanics) Anything used to maintain slack or isolate different objects.

    3. (rail transport) A device on trains and carriages designed to cushion the impact between them.

      • 1885, W. S. Gilbert, The Mikado, Act II, in The Mikado, and Other Plays, New York: Modern Library, 1917, p. 42, https://archive.org/details/mikadootherplays00gilb The idiot who, in railway carriages, / Scribbles on...
      • The underframe, which has been designed to take buffing loads of 200 tons both on the centre coupler and on the retractable side buffers, consists of two centre girders from which cantilevers project to support the...
      • Then, with a shock like a thousand goods trains crashing into a thousand pairs of buffers, the lips of rock closed. - 1953, C. S. Lewis, chapter 14, in The Silver Chair, Collins, published 1998:

    4. (rail transport) The barrier placed at the end of the track to absorb the impact of a train that fails to stop.

      • Of course, I was not always right. I questioned the value of Crossrail (a scheme revived by Prescott after being scrapped by the Conservatives), suggesting wrongly that it may be "doomed to hit the buffers" […]. A dozen...

    5. An isolating circuit, often an amplifier, used to minimize the influence of a driven circuit on the driving circuit.

    6. (telecommunications) A routine or storage medium used to compensate for a difference in rate of flow of data, or time of occurrence of events, when transferring data from one device to another.

    7. (computing) A portion of memory set aside to temporarily store data, often before it is sent to an external device or as it is received from an external device.

    8. (politics, international relations) A buffer zone (such as a demilitarized zone) or a buffer state.

    9. (finance) A reserve of funds set aside for use only when adverse circumstances prevail.

      • I keep a savings buffer of three months' worth of living expenses.

    10. (figurative) A gap that isolates or separates two things.

      • An utterly emphatic 5-0 victory was ultimately capped by two wonder strikes in the last two minutes from Aston Villa midfielder Gary Gardner. Before that, England had utterly dominated to take another purposeful stride...
  2. The chief boatswain's mate.
    • He decided to run for president of the POs' Mess against the Buffer, Chief Bosun's Mate Mal Crane, but the two had a face-to-face in his cabin one night in Narvik and sorted it out. - 2001, Mark Higgitt, Through Fire...
    • I happen to be on the brow handing my Bosun's Mate duties over to an Ordinary Seaman when the Buffer arrives with an unofficial Side-Party to man the brow with Bosun's Calls at the ready. - 2015, Peter Broadbent, A...

Origin

Agent noun from obsolete verb buff (“make a dull sound when struck”) (mid-16c.), from Old French buffe (“blow”). The “boatswain's mate” sense is said to be popularly explained by the mate being a “buffer”, that is intermediary, between officers and men, but various other explanations have also been proposed.

Forms

buffers

Derived

back buffer buffer beam bufferbloat buffer car bufferhead bufferize bufferless buffer overflow buffer overrun buffer solution buffer state buffer stock buffer stop buffer underrun buffer zone circular buffer cryobuffer direct buffer disk buffer framebuffer gap buffer G-buffer immunobuffer multibuffer

Noun Entry 3

  1. Someone or something that buffs (polishes and makes shiny).

    1. A machine with rotary brushes, passed over a hard floor to clean it.

    2. A machine for polishing shoes and boots.

  2. A boxer.
    • Such a buffer as Donnelly, / Ereland never again will see. - 1821, Pierce Egan (the Elder), Boxiana; or, Sketches of antient and modern pugilism (page 117)

Forms

buffers

Derived

buffer lass buffer rodeo

Noun colloquial

  1. A good-humoured, slow-witted fellow, usually an elderly man.
    • Lastly, the looking-glass reflects Boots and Brewer, and two other stuffed Buffers interposed between the rest of the company and possible accidents. - 1864-1865, Charles Dickens, “Book The First, chapter 2 "The Man...
    • Here, too, are Boots and Brewer, and the two other Buffers; each Buffer with a flower in his button-hole, his hair curled, and his gloves buttoned on tight, apparently come prepared, if anything had happened to the...
    • I can’t expect two youngsters like you to find it much fun talking to an old buffer like me. - 1955, C[live] S[taples] Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew, London: The Bodley Head, →OCLC:

Forms

buffers

Derived

bufferdom

Noun UK, dated

  1. A dog.
    • Who does not remember that adorable little dog, and that last Christmas season at Olympia, when the Whimmy we had all loved had been dead a month or so, and his buffer ran disconsolately round the circus, pining […] -...

Origin

In reference to buff leather.

Forms

buffers

Verb

  1. To use a buffer or buffers; to isolate or minimize the effects of one thing on another.
    • The electronic apparatus is designed to buffer up the sorted wagons in the sidings at a speed not exceeding 4.7 m.p.h.—a particularly important provision in this yard, with its substantial traffic in whisky. - 1962...

    1. (video games) To queue up (an input) so that it is performed immediately once it is possible.

      • Some games let you buffer jumps—if you hold the jump button mid-air, your character will jump as soon as they touch the ground.
  2. To store (data) in memory temporarily while it is awaiting processing.
  3. To maintain the acidity of a solution near a chosen value by adding an acid or a base.

Forms

buffers buffering buffered

Derived

bufferable buffer up debuffer pause buffer prebuffer rebuffer unbuffer