buff

buff¹ blow, buffet

Etymology

The word for a blow is inherited from Middle English buffe,^[2][3][4] probably borrowed from Old French buffe (“a blow”),^{[5][6][7][3][8]} the source also of buffet "a blow".^[8] The Anglo-Norman word, recorded from the late 12th century, meant a blow or knock and also a gust of wind or an outburst.^[9] Klein and Merriam-Webster call the French word imitative.^[3][4] The Middle English Dictionary and Etymonline instead derive the English word from buffet itself,^[2][10] and Collins calls it a back-formation from that noun.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

A blow or clash: about 1425, in The Avowing of King Arthur, of a boar that no one dared to face for a single buffe; the manuscript dates from about 1475.^[2][5] Etymonline dates the word to the early 15th century.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The word was used for a blow until the 17th century;^[5] buff and counterbuff seem to have been terms in fencing or boxing.^[5] The phrase to stand buff, to stand firm and not flinch, recorded from before 1680, perhaps belongs here,^[5][6][4] and the verbal phrase to buff it, to stand firm, derives from the phrase.^[5] The word survives mainly in the name of the game blind man's buff, first recorded around 1600;^[8][12][6] buff alone was the blindfolded player from 1647.^[5] Word Origins notes that in America the game is called blind man's bluff, a change to a more familiar word.^[12] Merriam-Webster labels the noun now chiefly dialectal,^[4] and in the 19th century dialect speakers in Scotland, Ireland and northern England still used buff for beating, knocking or boxing.^[13]

Timeline

• c. 1425 – a blow, a buffet (manuscript c. 1475).^[2][5]
• c. 1600 – blind man's buff, the game.^[8]
• 1647 – the blindfolded player in blind man's buff.^[5]
• before 1680 – to stand buff, to stand firm.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. (chiefly dialect) A blow or buffet.^[4][6]
2. blind man's buff: the name of a game with a blindfolded player.^[5][6][12]
3. (archaic) to stand buff: to stand firm; not to flinch.^[6][4][5]

Word family

• blind man's buff
• counterbuff

buff² leather; colour; enthusiast

Etymology

The leather word is probably a shortening of the obsolete noun buffle, a buffalo,^[5][6] borrowed from Middle French buffle (“buffalo”),^{[14][4][15][10][3][16]} from Old Italian bufalo,^[4][14][15] from Late Latin būfalus, a form of būbalus,^[5][15][11] the source of buffalo.^[10][14] Klein suggests that the ending “-le” was dropped because it was taken for a diminutive suffix.^[3] Ayto presumes an alteration of a French word buffe (“buffalo”).^[8] The sense "enthusiast" comes from the buff-coloured uniforms of the volunteer firemen of New York City, whose followers were called “buffs”.^{[14][10][17][18]}

Earliest recorded meaning

A buffalo or other wild ox: 1538, in Elyot's Dictionary,^[5] 1552 in Barnhart and Merriam-Webster.^[14][4] The leather is recorded from 1554,^[5] and buffe leather from 1580 in Barnhart and the 1570s in Etymonline.^[14][10]

Semantic evolution

The word moved from the animal to its hide: thick, dull-yellow leather with a velvety surface, made from buffalo and later from ox hide.^[5][8][6] Because the leather was used for military coats, buff was also soldiers' attire from 1598, and to be in buff was to be in the army.^[5][8][12] The link between hide and skin then gave in the buff, naked, from 1602, in Dekker's Satiromastix;^[5][18][8] Word Origins adds that the leather's colour resembled that of a white person's skin.^[12] The colour itself, a yellowish beige, is recorded from 1672,^[5] or by 1788 in Etymonline,^[10] and the adjective "of the colour of buff" from 1762;^[10] it named British regiments with buff facings, the Buffs, from 1748.^[5][16] In the 19th century pads and wheels covered with soft buff leather were used for polishing, and the verb buff, to polish, followed: Merriam-Webster dates it to 1838, Etymonline to 1849.^[8][4][10] The firemen's followers in New York were described in the New York Sun in 1903 as men and boys who loved fires and could not keep away from them;^[10][12] the sense "enthusiast" dates from that year,^[14][10] and by 1931 it covered a devotee of anything, as in film buff.^[14][18] Last, the slang adjective "muscular, fit, attractive", which appeared in California in the early 1980s, is probably from the verb, as if the body had been polished.^[5][12][10]

Timeline

• 1538 – a buffalo or wild ox.^[5]
• 1554 – buff leather.^[5]
• 1598 – military attire of buff leather.^[5]
• 1602 – in buff, naked.^[5][18]
• 1672 – the colour, a yellowish beige.^[5]
• 1748 – the Buffs, regiments with buff facings.^[5]
• 1762 – adjective, of the colour of buff.^[10]
• 1826 – a polishing implement covered with buff.^[5]
• 1838 – verb, to polish.^[4]
• 1903 – an enthusiast for fires and firefighting, in New York.^[14][10]
• 1931 – an enthusiast for any subject.^[14]
• 1982 – adjective, muscular and physically attractive.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A soft, thick, undyed leather made chiefly from the hides of buffalo, oxen or elk.^[11][19][4]
2. A dull yellow or yellowish-brown colour.^[11][19][4]
3. (informal) A person who is enthusiastic and knowledgeable about a subject: a jazz buff.^[19][11][14]
4. (informal) The bare skin, especially in the phrase in the buff, naked.^[11][4][5]
5. A pad, stick or wheel covered with soft material, used for polishing.^[11][4][5]
6. A coat or uniform made of buff leather.^[19][4][5]

Adjective

1. Of the colour buff: a buff envelope.^[11][4]
2. (slang) Of a person, muscular and physically fit: He got buff over the summer.^[4][5][18]
3. Made of buff leather.^[19][4]

Verb

1. To polish or shine with a soft cloth or a buff: She buffed the brass handles.^[11][19][4]
2. To give a velvety surface to leather.^[19][4][5]

Word family

• buffable
• unbuffed
• buff wheel