Etymologically
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buff

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Pronunciation

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
  • buffalo
  • buffet
  • buffle

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  3. ^ a b c d e Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  9. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h i Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  12. ^ a b c d e f g Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  13. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  14. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  15. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  16. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  17. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  18. ^ a b c d e Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
  19. ^ a b c d e f g The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin