buffer

See also: Buffer

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈbʌfə(ɹ)/, [ˈbɐfə(ɹ)]
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈbʌfɚ/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /ˈbafə(ɹ)/, [ˈbäfə(ɹ)]

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌfə(ɹ)

Etymology 1

Noun

buffer (plural buffers)

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. (slang, archaic, Ireland) A boxer.
   • 1821, Pierce Egan (the Elder), Boxiana; or, Sketches of antient and modern pugilism (page 117)

     Such a buffer as Donnelly, / Ereland never again will see.

3. (finance) reserves, savings.

Derived terms

• buffer lass
• buffer rodeo
• circular buffer

Translations

someone or something that buffs

• Finnish: kiillottaja (someone); kiillotuskone (machine)

Adjective

buffer

1. Comparative form of buff: more buff.

Etymology 2

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

buffer (plural buffers)

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. (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.
   4. (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, [2]

        The idiot who, in railway carriages, / Scribbles on window panes, / We only suffer / To ride on a buffer / In Parliamentary trains.

      • 1951 May, “British Railways Standard Coaches”, in Railway Magazine, page 327:

        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.

      • 1953, C. S. Lewis, chapter 14, in The Silver Chair, Collins, published 1998:

        Then, with a shock like a thousand goods trains crashing into a thousand pairs of buffers, the lips of rock closed.

   5. (rail transport) The metal barrier to help prevent trains from running off the end of the track.
      • 2024 January 10, Christian Wolmar, “A time for change? ... just as it was back in issue 262”, in RAIL, number 1000, page 61:

        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 allowed to change our minds.

   6. An isolating circuit, often an amplifier, used to minimize the influence of a driven circuit on the driving circuit.
   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. (figurative) A gap that isolates or separates two things.
      • 2011 November 10, Jeremy Wilson, “England Under 21 5 Iceland Under 21 0: match report”, in Telegraph‎^[3]:

        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 five-point buffer at the top of Group Eight.

2. (UK, nautical, slang) The chief boatswain's mate.
   • 2001, Mark Higgitt, Through Fire and Water, page 43:

     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.

   • 2015, Peter Broadbent, A Singapore Fling: An AB's Far-Flung Adventure:

     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.

Derived terms

• buffer beam
• bufferbloat
• bufferhead
• bufferize
• bufferless
• buffer overflow
• buffer overrun
• buffer solution
• buffer solution
• buffer state
• buffer stock
• buffer stop
• buffer underrun
• buffer zone
• buffer zone
• cryobuffer
• direct buffer
• framebuffer
• gap buffer
• G-buffer
• immunobuffer
• multibuffer
• non-direct buffer
• printer buffer
• riparian buffer
• stencil buffer
• volatility buffer
• z-buffer

 

Translations

anything used to isolate or to minimise the effects of one thing on another

• Esperanto: bufro (eo)
• Finnish: puskuri (fi)
• French: tampon (fr) m
• Maori: pākai, tauārai
• Spanish: búfer m, parachoques (es) m, amortiguador m, intercesor (es) m, mediador (es) m, aislador (es) m, aislante (es) m
• Welsh: byffer m

solution to stabilize pH

• Danish: puffer c, buffer c
• Dutch: buffermengsel n
• Esperanto: bufro (eo)
• Finnish: puskuriliuos, puskuri (fi)
• French: solution tampon
• Greek: ρυθμιστικό διάλυμα n (rythmistikó diályma)
• Indonesian: bufer (id), penyangga (id), dapar
• Italian: soluzione tampone
• Macedonian: пуфер m (pufer)
• Maori: mehanga whakatautika
• Occitan: solucion tampon f
• Polish: bufor (pl) m
• Portuguese: solução tampão
• Spanish: tampón, solución amortiguadora, solución reguladora
• Swedish: buffert (sv) c, buffertlösning c

portion of memory in computing

• Bulgarian: бу́фер m (búfer)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 緩衝器／缓冲器 (zh) (huǎnchōngqì), 缓冲区 (huǎnchōngqū)

• Czech: vyrovnávací paměť f, buffer m
• Dutch: buffer (nl) m
• Esperanto: bufro (eo)
• Estonian: puhver
• Finnish: puskuri (fi)
• French: tampon (fr) m, mémoire tampon (fr) f
• German: Puffer (de) m
• Greek: ενδιάμεση μνήμη (el) f (endiámesi mními), πρόσκαιρη μνήμη f (próskairi mními)
• Hebrew: חוֹצֵץ m (hotsets)
• Icelandic: biðminni n
• Japanese: バッファ (ja) (baffa), バッファー (ja) (baffā)
• Latin: conditorium intermedium n, memoria intermedia f
• Lithuanian: buferis
• Maori: pūreirei
• Norwegian:

  Bokmål: buffer m

• Occitan: memòria tampon f
• Persian: بافر (fa) (bâfer)
• Polish: bufor (pl) m
• Portuguese: buffer (pt) m
• Romanian: memorie tampon f, memorie intermediară f
• Russian: бу́фер (ru) m (búfer)
• Serbo-Croatian: međuspremnik m
• Spanish: memoria intermedia f, antememoria f
• Swedish: buffert (sv) c, buffertminne
• Turkish: arabellek (tr)
• Vietnamese: bộ nhớ đệm, vùng nhớ đệm, bộ đệm

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 isolate or minimize the effects of one thing on another.
   • 1962 October, G. Freeman Allen, “The New Look in Scotland's Northern Division—II”, in Modern Railways, page 274:

     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.

   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. (computing) To store data in memory temporarily.
3. (chemistry) To maintain the acidity of a solution near a chosen value by adding an acid or a base.

Derived terms

• bufferable
• buffer up
• debuffer
• prebuffer
• rebuffer
• unbuffer

 

Translations

to isolate, to minimise the impacts of one thing on another

• Dutch: inperken (nl)
• Finnish: eristää (fi), puskuroida
• Maori: tauārai
• Spanish: amortiguar (es), aislar (es), interceder (es), mediar (es)

maintain a given acidity

• Finnish: puskuroida
• French: tamponner (fr)
• Italian: tamponare (it)
• Maori: whakatautika
• Portuguese: tamponar (pt)
• Spanish: tamponar

Etymology 3

Noun

buffer (plural buffers)

1. (colloquial) A good-humoured, slow-witted fellow, usually an elderly man.
   • 1864-1865, Charles Dickens, “Book The First, chapter 2 "The Man from Somewhere"”, in Our Mutual Friend‎^[4], archived from the original on 6 January 2014:

     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 10 "A Marriage Contract"”, in Our Mutual Friend‎^[5], archived from the original on 6 January 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.

   • 1955, C[live] S[taples] Lewis, The Magician’s Nephew, London: The Bodley Head, →OCLC:

     I can’t expect two youngsters like you to find it much fun talking to an old buffer like me.

Derived terms

• bufferdom

 

Anagrams

• rebuff

Danish

Etymology

From English buffer.

Noun

buffer c (singular definite bufferen, plural indefinite buffere)

1. (chemistry) buffer

Declension

Declension of buffer

common gender	Singular		Plural
	indefinite	definite	indefinite	definite
nominative	buffer	bufferen	buffere	bufferene
genitive	buffers	bufferens	bufferes	bufferenes

Synonyms

• puffer

Further reading

• “buffer” in Den Danske Ordbog

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from English buffer.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈbʏ.fər/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: buf‧fer
• Rhymes: -ʏfər

Noun

buffer m (plural buffers, diminutive buffertje n)

1. a buffer for storage
2. a buffer, margin for safety
3. (rail transport) a buffer (device on trains and carriages designed to cushion the impact between them)

Derived terms

• bufferen
• buffergeheugen
• bufferstaat
• buffervoorraad
• bufferzone
• geheugenbuffer

Italian

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English buffer.

Noun

buffer m (invariable)

1. (computing) buffer

   Synonym: memoria tampone

Portuguese

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English buffer.

Pronunciation

 

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /ˈbɐ.feʁ/ [ˈbɐ.feh]

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /ˈbɐ.feʁ/ [ˈbɐ.feh]
  • (São Paulo) IPA^(key): /ˈbɐ.feɾ/
  • (Rio de Janeiro) IPA^(key): /ˈbɐ.feʁ/ [ˈbɐ.feχ]
  • (Southern Brazil) IPA^(key): /ˈbɐ.feɻ/

• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /ˈbɐ.fɛɾ/

Noun

buffer m (plural buffers)

1. (computing) buffer (memory for temporary storage)

Romansch

Alternative forms

• buffar (Rumantsch Grischun, Sursilvan)
• bufar (Sutsilvan)
• boffar (Vallader)

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Verb

buffer

1. (Puter) to blow

Synonyms

• (Rumantsch Grischun, Sursilvan) sufflar
• (Sutsilvan, Surmiran) zuflar
• (Puter) zufler
• (Vallader) sofflar

Spanish

Noun

buffer m (plural buffers)

1. (computing) buffer