Word.ws English Dictionary

buffer

Syllables: buff·erUK/ˈbʌfə//ˈbʌfəɹ/

buffer noun: a machine with rotary brushes, passed over a hard floor to clean it. Also the comparative form of buff.

buffer: a machine with rotary brushes, passed over a hard floor to clean it
Image: Arayabee, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

buffer (plural buffers)

  1. A machine with rotary brushes, passed over a hard floor to clean it.
  2. A machine for polishing shoes and boots.
  3. (Ireland, archaic, slang) 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)

Noun (2)

buffer (plural buffers)

  1. 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. Anything used to maintain slack or isolate different objects.
  3. A device on trains and carriages designed to cushion the impact between them.
    • The idiot who, in railway carriages, / Scribbles on window panes, / We only suffer / To ride on a buffer / In Parliamentary trains.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 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 solebars, which in turn carry the bodyside structure.1951 May, “British Railways Standard Coaches”, in Railway Magazine, page 327
  4. 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...2024 January 10, Christian Wolmar, “A time for change? ... just as it was back in issue 262”, in RAIL, number 1000, page 61
  5. An isolating circuit, often an amplifier, used to minimize the influence of a driven circuit on the driving circuit.
  6. 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. 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. (international relations) A buffer zone (such as a demilitarized zone) or a buffer state.
  9. A means, often normally idle inventory, used as a cushion against fluctuations in business, especially in the supply or demand for goods.
  10. 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.
  11. (figuratively) 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...2011 November 10, Jeremy Wilson, “England Under 21 5 Iceland Under 21 0: match report”, in Telegraph
  12. (UK, slang) 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 and Water, page 43
    • 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 Singapore Fling: An AB's Far-Flung Adventure

Verb

buffer (third-person singular simple present buffers, present participle buffering, simple past and past participle buffered)

  1. 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.1962 October, G. Freeman Allen, “The New Look in Scotland's Northern Division—II”, in Modern Railways, page 274
    1. 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. (intransitive, transitive) 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.

Noun (3)

buffer (plural buffers)

  1. (colloquial) 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 from Somewhere"”, in Our Mutual Friend, archived from the original on 06 Jan 2014
    • 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 bridegroom, to be married instantly.1864-1865, Charles Dickens, “Book The First, chapter 10 "A Marriage Contract"”, in Our Mutual Friend, archived from the original on 06 Jan 2014

Noun (4)

buffer (plural buffers)

  1. (UK, dated, slang) 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 […]1934, The Sawdust Ring, page 27

Proper noun capitalized: Buffer

Buffer (plural Buffers)

  1. A surname

Also used as

buffer is also the comparative form of buff.

buffer meaning in Marathi, Urdu, Bengali and Telugu

buffer in Marathi

बफर, बुफर, बफर करा

buffer in Urdu

بفر

buffer in Bengali

বাফার, বফার, ব্যাফার

buffer in Telugu

బఫర్, బఫరు, బఫెర్
More languagesFewer languages
buffer in Malayalam
ബഫർ, ബാഫർ
buffer in Kannada
ಬಫರ್, ಬಾಫರ್
buffer in Punjabi
ਬਫਰ, ਬੱਫਰ, ਬਫ਼ਰ
buffer in Gujarati
બફર, બફર કરો
buffer in Odia
ବଫର୍, ବଫର, ବାଫର୍
buffer in Nepali
बफर
buffer in Indonesian
penyangga, dapar, bufer
buffer in Persian
بافر bâfer
buffer in Vietnamese
bộ nhớ đệm, vùng nhớ đệm, bộ đệm

Examples of buffer in a sentence

  • 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:
  • 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" […].2024 January 10, Christian Wolmar, “A time for change? ... just as it was back in issue 262”, in RAIL, number 1000, page 61:
  • They have already established a five-point buffer at the top of Group Eight.2011 November 10, Jeremy Wilson, “England Under 21 5 Iceland Under 21 0: match report”, in Telegraph:
  • 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:

All 40 example sentences with buffer

Forms of buffer

Noun
pluralbuffers
Verb
third-person singular presentbuffers
present participlebuffering
past participlebuffered
pastbuffered
Proper noun
pluralBuffers

Past tense of buffer: buffered

Plural of buffer: buffers

Origin of buffer

From buff + -er.

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.

In reference to buff leather.

Words formed from buffer

Phrases with buffer

Words that rhyme with buffer

Questions about buffer

What does buffer mean?
Buffer means a machine with rotary brushes, passed over a hard floor to clean it.
What is buffer in Marathi?
Buffer in Marathi is बफर, बुफर, बफर करा. See Buffer meaning in Marathi.
How do you use buffer in a sentence?
Then, with a shock like a thousand goods trains crashing into a thousand pairs of buffers, the lips of rock closed.
What part of speech is buffer?
Buffer can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce buffer?
Buffer is pronounced /ˈbʌfə/ (UK).
What is the plural of buffer?
The plural of buffer is buffers.

Words near buffer in the dictionary

  1. buffel ducks
  2. buffelgrass
  3. buffelgrasses
  4. buffelhead
  5. buffelheads
  6. buffer
  7. buffer beam
  8. buffer beams
  9. buffer car
  10. buffer cars
  11. buffer lass

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: buffer (page history and authors); Buffer (page history and authors); buffer (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); buffer (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); buffer (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); buffer (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); buffer (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); buffer (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); buffer (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); buffer (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); buffer (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); buffer (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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: En-us-buffer.ogg, En-au-buffer.ogg.

Cite this entry: “buffer.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/buffer. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.