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Buffer   /bˈəfər/   Listen
noun
Buffer  n.  
1.
(Mech.)
(a)
An elastic apparatus or fender, for deadening the jar caused by the collision of bodies; as, a buffer at the end of a railroad car.
(b)
A pad or cushion forming the end of a fender, which receives the blow; sometimes called buffing apparatus.
2.
One who polishes with a buff.
3.
A wheel for buffing; a buff.
4.
A good-humored, slow-witted fellow; usually said of an elderly man. (Colloq.)
5.
(Chem.) A substance or mixture of substances which can absorb or neutralize a certain quantity of acid or base and thus keep the degree of acidity or alkalinity of a solution (as measured by pH) relatively stable. Sometimes the term is used in a medical context to mean antacid.
6.
(Computers) A data storage device or portion of memory used to temporarily store input or output data until the receiving device is ready to process it.
7.
Any object or person that shields another object or person from harm, shock, or annoyance; as, the President's staff is his buffer from constant interruptions of his work.



verb
buffer  v. t.  (Chem.) To add a buffer (5) to (a solution), so as to reduce unwanted fluctuation of acidity.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Buffer" Quotes from Famous Books



... inability to part from boyhood, clings desperately and with apoplectic puffings to these things is an essentially grotesque figure. To listen to young men discussing one of these my belated contemporaries, and to hear one enforcing on another the amusement to be gained from watching the old buffer's manoeuvres, is a lesson against undue youthfulness. One can indeed give amusement without loss of dignity, by being open to being induced to join in such things occasionally in an elderly way, ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson

... bitter. At first I seemed to have some success, but before long it became clear that the current was too strong and that the bitterness of faction was to prevail. I am so constituted that factious thought and effort dishearten and disgust me. At many periods of my life I have acted as a "buffer'' between conflicting cliques and factions, generally to some purpose; now it was otherwise. But, as Kipling says, ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White

... districts which, in the face of every kind of agitation, insist on returning exclusively non-party delegates. The local Soviets in these districts are also non-party, and they elect usually a local Bolshevik to some responsible post to act as it were as a buffer between themselves and the central authority. They manage local affairs in their own way, and, through the use of tact on both sides, avoid falling foul of the more rigid ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome

... kick; but seeing O'Riley coming down towards him like a runaway locomotive, he pulled up, saying quietly to himself, "Ye may take it all yer own way, lad; I'm too old a bird to go for to make my carcass a buffer for a madcap like ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... cackler, prig of prancer; No swigman, swaddler, clapperdudgeon; Cadge-gloak, curtal, or curmudgeon; No whip-jack, palliard, patrico; No jarkman, be he high or low; No dummerar, or romany; No member of "the Family;" No ballad-basket, bouncing buffer, Nor any other, will I suffer; But stall-off now and for ever, All outliers whatsoever: And as I keep to the foregone, ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth


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