buff

• IPA^(key): /bʌf/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌf

From buffe (“leather”), from Middle French buffle (“buffalo”).

buff (countable and uncountable, plural buffs)

1. Undyed leather from the skin of buffalo or similar animals.
   • c. 1594 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Comedie of Errors”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii], page 94:

     […] ; but is in a ſuite of buffe […]

2. A tool, often one covered with buff leather, used for polishing.
3. A brownish yellow colour.

   buff:  

   • 1693, John Dryden (translator), The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis Translated into English Verse, London: Jacob Tonson, Satire 10, lines 307-308, p. 203,

     […] a Visage rough,

     Deform’d, Unfeatur’d, and a Skin of Buff.

   • 1929, Dashiell Hammett, chapter 24, in Red Harvest‎:

     His face changed from tan to buff.

4. A military coat made of buff leather.
   • c. 1594 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Comedie of Errors”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii], page 94:

     A diuell in an euerlaſting garment hath him ; / On whoſe hard heart is button’d vp with ſteele : / A Feind, a Fairie, pittileſſe and ruffe : / A Wolfe, nay worſe, a fellow all in buffe […]

5. (informal) A person who is very interested in a particular subject.

   Synonyms: enthusiast, aficionado; see also Thesaurus:fan

   He’s a real history buff. He knows everything there is to know about the civil war.

6. (video games, roleplaying games) An effect that makes a character or item stronger.

   Synonym: revamp

   Antonyms: debuff, nerf

   I just picked up an epic damage buff! Let's go gank the other team!

7. (rail transport) Compressive coupler force that occurs during a slack bunched condition.
8. (colloquial) The bare skin.

   to strip to the buff

   • 1880, Thomas Wright, “buff”, in Dictionary of obsolete and provincial English, containing words from the English writers previous to the nineteenth century which are no longer in use, or are not used in the same sense. And words which are now used only in the provincial dialects‎, volume 1, London: George Bell and Sons, page 265:

     To be in buff, is equivalent to being naked.

   • 2021 October 18, Ian Lecklitzner, “The Inevitable Rise of the Work-From-Home Nudist”, in MEL Magazine‎:

     Not to mention, nudity can be just plain convenient. “Laundry is minimal,” Schulte notes. It also doesn’t hurt that being in the buff spices up his workday.

9. The greyish viscid substance constituting the buffy coat.
10. Any substance used to dilute (street) drugs in order to increase profits.
    • 2014, “Aldergrove’s 856 gang busted, $400,000 in drugs seized,” CBC News, 30 July, 2014,

      Police say this 20 ton hydraulic jack was used to press mixtures of cocaine and “buff” into brick.

buff (comparative buffer or more buff, superlative buffest or most buff)

1. Of the color of buff leather, a brownish yellow.
2. (bodybuilding) Unusually muscular.

   Synonyms: buffed, buffed out

   The bouncer was a big, buff dude with tattoos, a shaved head, and a serious scowl.

3. (MLE slang) Physically attractive.
   • 2011, Josh Berk, The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin, Random House Digital, Inc., →ISBN, page 244:

     That's right: I'm taking driver's ed next semester. Hiring an interpreter for CHS and the deaf school outta my own hefty pockets. You're welcome. Oh, and I'm going to get really skinny and buff. All slim like a swimsuit model.

• buff-tip moth
• buffly
• buffster

buff (third-person singular simple present buffs, present participle buffing, simple past and past participle buffed)

1. To polish and make shiny by rubbing.

   Synonyms: wax, shine, polish, furbish, burnish

   He was already buffing the car's hubs.

2. (video games, roleplaying games) To make a character or an item stronger.

   Antonyms: debuff, nerf

   The enchanter buffed the paladin to prepare him to fight the dragon.

   I noticed that the pistols were buffed in the update.

3. (medical slang) To modify a medical chart, especially in a dishonest manner.
   • 1996, Jeffrey E. Nash, James M. Calonico, The Meaning of Social Interaction: An Introduction to Social Psychology‎, page 139:

     "Sure thing, I buffed her, and they turfed her to urology, but she bounced back to me!" [...] They attempted to transfer her to urology by modifying her chart (buffing it) to request urine tests, but the doctors in urology sent (bounced) her back.

   • 2004, Gregory Davis, Pathology and Law‎, page 121:

     The implication of such an action is an invitation to buff the chart. The medical records department could have prevented the falsification by sending a copy of the chart to the attorney at the same time that they notified the hospital physician of the attorney's request for the chart.

4. (graffiti slang) To remove a piece of graffiti by cleaning or removal, especially by a someone who is not a graffiti writer.

• buff out
• buff the muffin
• buff up
• buff wheel

• Appendix:Colors

Old French bufer (“to cuff, buffet”). See buffet (“a blow”).

buff (third-person singular simple present buffs, present participle buffing, simple past and past participle buffed)

1. To strike.
   • a. 1640, Ben Jonson, The Under-wood‎, page 277:

     Bravely run Red-hood, / There was a shock, / To have buff’d out the blood / From ought but a block.

buff (plural buffs)

1. (obsolete) A buffet; a blow.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto V”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 6:

     Nathless so sore a buff to him it lent / That made him reel.

   • 1841, Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance”, in Essays: First Series:

     A man must consider what a blind-man’s-buff is this game of conformity. If I know your sect I anticipate your argument.

• blind man's buff

From Middle English buffen (“to stutter, stammer”), from Old English byffan (“to mumble, mutter”), from Proto-West Germanic *bubjaną, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeyH- (“to fear, to be afraid”). More at bive (“tremble, shake”) and bever.

buff (third-person singular simple present buffs, present participle buffing, simple past and past participle buffed)

1. (dialectal or obsolete) To stammer, stutter

Clipping of buffalo.

buff (countable and uncountable, plural buffs)

1. (informal) A buffalo, or the meat of a buffalo.
   • 2006, Bradley Mayhew, Joe Bindloss, Stan Armington, Nepal:

     […] diced buff (buffalo) meat, usually heavily spiced […]

   • 1992, Marilyn Stablein, The Census Taker: Stories of a Traveler in India and Nepal, page 62:

     You will eat water buffalo meat and drink boiled water buffalo milk: buff burgers at Aunt Jane's restaurant, buff mo-mos which are the Tibetan won-tons, and buff steaks at The Globe.

buff (plural buffs)

1. (uncommon) Alternative form of buffe (“face armor”)
   • 1899, Selected Lives (orig. by Plutarch), page 317:

     For they had helmets on their heads, fashioned like wild beast's necks, and strange beavers or buffs to the same, and wore on their helmets great high plumes of feathers, as they had been wings : […]

From Danish bøf, a short form of Danish bøfsteg, from English beefsteak.

The confectionary meaning also exists in Danish.

buff n

1. beefsteak
2. a chocolate-covered, marshmallow-creme-filled confectionary

• hakkabuff (“beef patty”)

A generic trademark from the brand name Buff, whose bandanas were popularized by the Survivor TV series.

buff n

1. a multifunctional neck gaiter; a tubular bandana (used to keep one's head or neck warm during outdoor activities)

• lambhúshetta (“balaclava”)