buffer
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buffer¹
- /ˈbʌfə/ UK
- [ˈbɐfə(ɹ)] UK
- /ˈbʌfəɹ/ US
- /ˈbafə(ɹ)/ Australia
- [ˈbäfə(ɹ)] Australia
Rhymes with -ʌfə(ɹ)
Where it comes from
From buff + -er.
noun buffers
- A machine with rotary brushes, passed over a hard floor to clean it.
- A machine for polishing shoes and boots.
- A boxer. Such a buffer as Donnelly, / Ereland never again will see.
adjective
- Comparative form of buff: more buff.
buffer²
- /ˈbʌfə/ UK
- [ˈbɐfə(ɹ)] UK
- /ˈbʌfəɹ/ US
- /ˈbafə(ɹ)/ Australia
- [ˈbäfə(ɹ)] Australia
Rhymes with -ʌfə(ɹ)
Where it comes from
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.
noun buffers
- 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.
- Anything used to maintain slack or isolate different objects.
- 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 window panes, / We only suffer / To ride on a buffer / In Parliamentary trains.
- 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 years later, I published my book on it, extolling the line's wonders. We are all
- An isolating circuit, often an amplifier, used to minimize the influence of a driven circuit on the driving circuit.
- 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.
- 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.
- A buffer zone (such as a demilitarized zone) or a buffer state.
- A means, often normally idle inventory, used as a cushion against fluctuations in business, especially in the supply or demand for goods.
- 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.
- 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 towards the 2013 European Championship in Israel. They have already established a
- 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.
verb buffers · buffering · buffered
- To use a buffer or buffers; to attempt to isolate or minimize the effects of one thing or 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.
- 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.
- To store (data) in memory temporarily while it is awaiting processing.
- To maintain the acidity of a solution near a chosen value by adding an acid or a base.
buffer³
- /ˈbʌfə/ UK
- [ˈbɐfə(ɹ)] UK
- /ˈbʌfəɹ/ US
- /ˈbafə(ɹ)/ Australia
- [ˈbäfə(ɹ)] Australia
Rhymes with -ʌfə(ɹ)
noun buffers
- 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.
buffer⁴
- /ˈbʌfə/ UK
- [ˈbɐfə(ɹ)] UK
- /ˈbʌfəɹ/ US
- /ˈbafə(ɹ)/ Australia
- [ˈbäfə(ɹ)] Australia
Rhymes with -ʌfə(ɹ)
Where it comes from
In reference to buff leather.
noun buffers
- 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 […]
Buffer⁵
proper noun Buffers
- A surname
Thesaurus
Closest in meaning: polisher, cushion, fender, cowcatcher, pilot, soften, buffer storage, buffer store, swab, pad, padding, pillow, mattress, damper, cloth, seam
Translations
Every language
noun someone or something that buffs
| Español | escrepa |
|---|
noun anything used to isolate or to minimise the effects of one thing on another
| Español | búfer, parachoques, amortiguador, intercesor, mediador, aislador |
|---|---|
| Français | tampon |
| Deutsch | Puffer |
noun solution to stabilize pH
| Español | tampón, solución amortiguadora, disolución reguladora |
|---|---|
| Português | solução tampão |
| Français | solution tampon |
| Italiano | soluzione tampone |
| Ελληνικά | ρυθμιστικό διάλυμα rythmistikó diályma |
noun rail transport: barrier that absorbs the impact of a train
| Français | tampon |
|---|---|
| Deutsch | Puffer |
| Italiano | respingente |
| Română | tampon |
noun portion of memory in computing
| Español | memoria intermedia, antememoria |
|---|---|
| 日本語 | バッファ baffa, バッファー baffā |
| 中文 | 緩衝器 /缓冲器 huǎnchōngqì, 缓冲区 huǎnchōngqū |
| Português | buffer |
| Français | tampon, mémoire tampon |
| Deutsch | Puffer, Pufferspeicher |
| Ελληνικά | ενδιάμεση μνήμη endiámesi mními, πρόσκαιρη μνήμη próskairi mními |
| Română | memorie tampon, memorie intermediară |
| Русский | бу́фер búfer |
| Tiếng Việt | bộ nhớ đệm, vùng nhớ đệm, bộ đệm |
| עברית | חוֹצֵץ hotsets |
verb to isolate, to minimise the impacts of (one thing on another)
| Español | amortiguar, aislar, interceder, mediar |
|---|
Talk about this word "buffer." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/buffer. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. buffer. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/buffer "buffer." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/buffer.Cite this
@misc{buffer_2026,
title = {buffer},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/buffer},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
