buffet - Wiktionary, the free dictionary (original) (raw)

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

Jean-Louis Forain, The Buffet, 1884

Inherited from Middle English buffet (“stool”), from Middle French buffet (“side table”), from Old French buffet, of unknown origin. The modern pronunciation is remodelled after modern French buffet.

buffet (plural buffets)

  1. A counter or sideboard from which food and drinks are served or may be bought.
    Synonyms: sideboard, smorgasbord, (obsolete) cupboard
    • 1909 September 9, Archibald Marshall [pseudonym; Arthur Hammond Marshall], “A Court Ball”, in The Squire’s Daughter, London: Methuen & Co. […], →OCLC, page 9:
      They stayed together during three dances, went out on to the terrace, explored wherever they were permitted to explore, paid two visits to the buffet, and enjoyed themselves much in the same way as if they had been school-children surreptitiously breaking loose from an assembly of grown-ups.
  2. Food laid out in this way, to which diners serve themselves.
    Synonyms: buffet meal, smorgasbord
    We'll be serving supper buffet style.
    • 1992, Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash, page 312:
      "We got a big buffet coming up soon. Bacon, eggs, fresh fruit you wouldn't believe."
  3. A small low stool; a hassock.

counter or sideboard

From Middle English buffet (“buffet”), from Old French buffet, diminutive of buffe, cognate with Italian buffetto. See buffer, buffoon, and compare German puffen (“to jostle, to hustle”).

buffet (countable and uncountable, plural buffets)

  1. (countable) A blow or cuff with or as if with the hand, or by any other solid object or the wind.
    Synonyms: blow, (by any solid object) collision, (with the hand) cuff
  2. (aviation, uncountable) The vibration of an aircraft when flying in or approaching a stall, caused by separation of airflow from the aircraft's wings.
    • 1979 December 21, National Transportation Safety Board, “Aircraft and Flightcrew Performance”, in Aircraft Accident Report: American Airlines, Inc., DC-10-10, N110AA, Chicago-O'Hare International Airport, Chicago, Illinois, May 25, 1979‎[1], archived from the original on 17 August 2022, page 54:
      The aircraft configuration was such that there was little or no warning of the stall onset. The inboard slats were extended, and therefore, the flow separation from the stall would be limited to the outboard segment of the left wing and would not be felt by the left horizontal stabilizer. There would be little or no buffet. The DFDR also indicated that there was some turbulence, which could have masked any aerodynamic buffeting. Since the roll to the left began at V2 + 6 and since the pilots were aware that V2 was well above the aircraft's stall speed, they probably did not suspect that the roll to the left indicated a stall. In fact, the roll probably confused them, especially since the stickshaker had not activated.

From Middle English buffeten, from Old French buffeter, from the noun (see above).

buffet (third-person singular simple present buffets, present participle buffeting or (rare) buffetting, simple past and past participle buffeted or (rare) buffetted)

  1. (transitive) To strike with a buffet; to cuff; to slap.
  2. (transitive, figurative) To aggressively challenge, denounce, or criticise.
    Synonym: batter
    • 1977 August 20, Robert Etherington, “John Horne Burns and His Enemies”, in Gay Community News, volume 5, number 7, page 10:
      Is Burns obscure because he was gay and therefore ignorable until the Gay Rights Movement began? Or does he largely deserve his neglect? An answer requires that one examine not only Burns' books, but also the critical environment in which he was much buffeted — which, we are told, drove him to an early grave.
    • 2013 May 23, Sarah Lyall, “British Leader’s Liberal Turn Sets Off a Rebellion in His Party”, in New York Times, retrieved 29 May 2013:
      Buffeted by criticism of his policy on Europe, battered by rebellion in the ranks over his bill to legalize same-sex marriage and wounded by the perception that he is supercilious, contemptuous and out of touch with mainstream Conservatism, Mr. Cameron earlier this week took the highly unusual step of sending a mass e-mail (or, as he called it, “a personal note”) to his party’s grass-roots members.
  3. To affect as with blows; to strike repeatedly; to strive with or contend against.
    Synonym: batter
    to buffet the billows
    • 1726, William Broome, epistle to Elijah Fenton:
      The sudden hurricane in thunder roars, / Buffets the bark, and whirls it from the shores.
    • 1830, Joseph Plumb Martin, “Ch. I”, in A Narrative of Some of the Adventures, Dangers and Sufferings of a Revolutionary Soldier:
      [...] I buffetted heat and mosquetoes, and got the hay all up [...]
    • 1887, William Black, “A Keepsake”, in Sabina Zembra […], volume III, London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC, page 146:
      You are lucky fellows who can live in a dreamland of your own, instead of being buffeted about the world—
    • 1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 288:
      Atlantic gales constantly buffet Morwenstow, whose seven hamlets together constitute Cornwall's most northerly parish. The village is dotted with trees moulded into weird shapes by the wind, and above the trees rise the vicarage chimneystacks resembling miniature church towers.
  4. To deaden the sound of (bells) by muffling the clapper.
  5. (intransitive) To struggle, contend; also in figurative or extended use: to move as if driven by force.

strike repeatedly and violently; batter

From English buffet.

buffet

  1. (Hong Kong Cantonese) buffet
    食buffet [Cantonese] ― sik6 pou6 fei1 [Jyutping] ― to have a buffet meal

From French buffet.

buffet

  1. buffet

The endings of the alternative, somewhat Finnicized forms buffetti and especially bufetti better fit the structure of Finnish.

Most Finns don't know that the letter t in the form buffet is silent (and that the letter u is pronounced [y]) and are not sure how to decline this form because no native Finnish nouns end in -et in the singular. They therefore consciously or unconsciously change the ending in the nominative to the more Finnish ending -tti in speaking, despite the fact that the French pronunciation (with [y] and silent t) is the only one listed in the Kielitoimiston sanakirja.

Some Finns have trouble pronouncing the sound [b] and many the sound [f], so the completely Finnicized form puhvetti is in fact widespread in speech even though the spelling buffetti is the most common.

Inherited from Middle French bufet (1150), from Old French bufet, of uncertain origin; possibly a Celtic borrowing. Compare Scottish Gaelic biadh (“food, sustenance”), buadha (“valuable, precious”).[1][2] Or, according to the Digitized Treasury of the French Language, from an imitative source akin to bouffer (“to eat (in excess)”).

buffet m (plural buffets)

  1. sideboard, dresser (a piece of furniture)
    Synonym: crédence
  2. buffet (food)
  3. (slang) belly
    Synonym: ventre
  1. ^ Mackay, Charles (1877): The Gaelic Etymology of the Languages of Western Europe: And More Especially of the English and Lowland Scotch, and Their Slang, Cant, and Colloquial Dialects, p. 58
  2. ^ Macleod, Norman (1887): A Dictionary of the Gaelic Language, in Two Parts: I. Gaelic and English.—II. English and Gaelic, p. 96

Unadapted borrowing from French buffet.

buffet m (invariable)

  1. (furniture) sideboard
    Synonym: dispensa

  2. buffet, refreshment bar

  3. ^ buffet in Luciano Canepari, Dizionario di Pronuncia Italiana (DiPI)

Borrowed from Old French bufet, buffet, diminutive of buffe.

buffet (plural buffettes)

  1. A buffet (strike or blow, especially with one's hand).

Borrowed from Middle French bufet (“side table”), from Old French bufet, of unknown origin.

buffet

  1. (Late Middle English) stool
    • 15th c., “Coliphizacio [The Buffeting]”, in Wakefield Mystery Plays; Re-edited in George England, Alfred W. Pollard, editors, The Towneley Plays (Early English Text Society Extra Series; LXXI), London: […] Oxford University Press, 1897, →OCLC, page 239:
      primus tortor. we shall teche hym, I wote / a new play of yoyll,
      And hold hym full hote / frawrord, a stoyll
      Go fetch vs!
      ffroward. We, dote! / now els were it doyll
      And vnneth;
      ffor the wo that he shall dre
      let hym knele on his kne.
      Secundus tortor. And so shall he for me;
      Go fetch vs a light buffit.
      First torturer: We shall teach him, I say, a new Christmas-time game, and treat him very hotly—Froward, go fetch us a stool!
      Froward: Whoa! Fool! We wouldn't want this to be painful and difficult. For the sake of the pain that he shall dread, let him kneel.
      Second torturer: And he shall [dread it] on my account. Go fetch us a light stool.

From French buffet.

buffet m (definite singular buffeten, indefinite plural buffeter, definite plural buffetene)

  1. sideboard or buffet (US) (dining room furniture containing table linen and services)
  2. buffet (counter or room where refreshments are sold)
  3. stående buffet - buffet (a meal which guests can serve themselves)

From French buffet.

buffet m (definite singular buffeten, indefinite plural buffetar, definite plural buffetane)

  1. sideboard or buffet (US) (dining room furniture containing table linen and services)
  2. buffet (a counter or room where refreshments are sold)
  3. ståande buffet - buffet (a meal which guests can serve themselves)

Unadapted borrowing from French buffet.

buffet m (plural buffets)

  1. alternative form of bufê

Unadapted borrowing from French buffet. Doublet of bufete.

buffet m (plural buffets)

  1. buffet

According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.