Meaning of Buffer | Babel Free

Definitions

1. Someone or something that buffs (polishes and makes shiny).
2. A machine with rotary brushes, passed over a hard floor to clean it.
3. Anything used to isolate or minimize the effect of one thing on another.
4. 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.
5. A surname
6. A good-humoured, slow-witted fellow, usually an elderly man.
   colloquial
7. A dog.
   UK, dated, slang
8. A machine for polishing shoes and boots.
9. Anything used to maintain slack or isolate different objects.
10. A boxer.
    Ireland, archaic, slang
11. A device on trains and carriages designed to cushion the impact between them.
12. The barrier placed at the end of the track to absorb the impact of a train that fails to stop.
13. An isolating circuit, often an amplifier, used to minimize the influence of a driven circuit on the driving circuit.
14. 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.
15. 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.
16. A buffer zone (such as a demilitarized zone) or a buffer state.
17. A reserve of funds set aside for use only when adverse circumstances prevail.
18. A gap that isolates or separates two things.
    figuratively
19. The chief boatswain's mate.
    UK, slang

Equivalents

Examples

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

“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 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.”

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Lastly, the looking-glass reflects Boots and Brewer, and two other stuffed Buffers interposed between the rest of the company and possible accidents.”

“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.”

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

“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 […]”

CEFR level