buff1
/bʌf
/- Body fur may be black, brown, grey, buff, red, white or multi-coloured, with many varieties of face markings.
- The whole room is a zebra pelt of black and white and that colour that has been the fashion staple for so long they've invented a dozen names for it - taupe, camel, fawn, buff.
- In the raffle, if they call out ticket 315, chances are I'll have it, but in buff when they want blue.
- Officers were members of the gentry who did not wear a uniform but wore their own fine quality civilian clothes. They might wear a buff coat made of thick leather, with a small armour ‘gorget’ around their throat.
- Among others, there is an account of his exchanging the bishop's cassock for the buff jerkin of a ballad singer, and selling out his stock of ballads at a tavern.
- The method of manufacturing a resin filled board according to claim 3, wherein said surfaces of said conductive layer are mechanically polished using a buff.
- This surface is then buffed and polished with ever finer materials, like lambs wool, until the characteristic lustre is achieved.
- When placed against the hot glass, the pad steams and smokes, forming a layer of carbon that helps to buff the glass.
- The makeup artist has smoothed and buffed the skin of his face, highlighting the wide planes of his cheekbones.
Synonyms
- Processing can be carried out on full grain and buffed leather of any origin and on leather fibre materials.
- The buffing operation also releases particulates, which may contain chromium. Leather tanning facilities, however, have not been viewed as sources of chromium emissions by the States in which they are located.
- Core strength is key to developing a beautiful, buff body from head to toe, says this month's featured trainer, Lisa Wheeler.
- He worked in Honduras in the 1980s - a big, buff guy with a metal plate in his head.
- ‘They were big, buff guys in caps and sunglasses, and their guns were drawn,’ Williams says.
Phrases
in the buff
Origin
Mid 16th century: probably from French buffle, from Italian bufalo, from late Latin bufalus (see buffalo). The original sense in English was 'buffalo', later 'oxhide' or 'colour of oxhide'.
The word buff originally meant ‘a buffalo or other type of wild ox’, and buff leather, often shortened to simply buff, was leather made from the hide of such an animal. This leather was very strong, with a pale yellowish-beige colour. It was used to make military uniforms, and so soldiers would be described as ‘wearing buff’ or ‘in buff’. The combination of these descriptions and the similarity of the leather's colour to that of a white person's skin led to in the buff, ‘naked’. The buff meaning ‘the bare skin’ dates from the mid 17th century. The slang sense ‘good-looking, fit, and attractive’, which appeared in California at the beginning of the 1980s, comes from the idea of ‘buffing’ or polishing something, originally with a cloth of buffalo leather. Another buff uniform gave rise to the buff who is enthusiastic and knowledgeable about a particular subject. The original buffs were, in the words of The New York Sun in 1903, ‘men and boys whose love of fires, fire-fighting, and firemen is a predominant characteristic’. The volunteer firemen in New York City formerly wore buff.
The buff in the game blind man's buff is an old word for ‘a blow, a buffet’ which survives only in this context. It is not surprising that people want to change the word to something more familiar, and in America the game is called blind man's bluff. A buffet (Middle English) was originally a lighter buff. The idea of blows is also found in the buffer (mid 19th century) for a shock-absorbing piston. The sense of buffer found in old buffer comes from an old dialect word for someone who stuttered or spluttered.
Rhymes
buff2
/bʌf/- If you're a film score buff or someone interested in good 20th century music, this CD issue won't disappoint.
- It's the perfect partner for workout enthusiasts and exercise buffs!
- For example, offering a net-based service costs very little and the expertise is often found among young computer buffs.
Synonyms
Origin
Early 20th century: from buff1, originally applied to enthusiastic fire-watchers, because of the buff uniforms formerly worn by New York volunteer firemen.