Also 6–7 buffe. [app. ad. F. buffle buffalo; cf. BUFFLE.]
I. The animal.
† 1. A buffalo, or other large species of wild ox.
1552. Huloet, Buffe, bugle, or wylde oxe, bubalus.
1577. B. Googe, Heresbach’s Husb. (1586), 137. Bubale, called of the common people Buffes, of Plinie Bisonte.
1582. D. Ingram, Narrat., in Arb., Eng. Garner, V. 256. Buffes, which are beasts as big as two oxen.
1621. Ainsworth, Annot. Pentat., Deut. xiv. 5. The Buffe, Buffel, or Wilde-oxe.
a. 1674. Milton, Moscovia, i. Wks. (1847), 569/1. Huge and desert Woods of Fir, abounding with black Wolves, Bears, Buffs.
1706. Phillips, Buff, Buffle or Buffalo, a wild Beast like an Ox.
† b. Used to render Pliny’s tarandus, now usually identified with the reindeer. Obs.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts (1658). A Buffe is called in Greek Tarandus.… When he is hunted or feared, he changeth his hew into whatsoever thing he seeth.
1617. Minsheu, Ductor in Ling., 56. A Buffe, so called because it has some likeness with the Buffle … L. Tarandus.
II. Buff-skin, leather, and its uses.
† 2. (More fully buff-leather): properly, Leather made of buffalo-hide; but usually applied to a very stout kind of leather made of ox-hide, dressed with oil, and having a characteristic fuzzy surface, and a dull whitish-yellow color.
1580. Baret, Alv., B 1447. Couerings of saddles made of buffe leather.
1581. Jrnls. Ho. Commons, 130. The Bill touching the Making of Spanish Leather and Buff within this Realm.
1613. Voy. Guiana, in Harl. Misc. (Malh.), III. 190. The hide [of the Sea-cow] … will make good buff.
1711. Steele, Spect., No. 43, ¶ 10. To have Flea’d the Pict, and made Buff of his Skin.
1756. Gentl. Mag., XXVI. 61. Losh, or buff-leather, drest in oil, fit for the use of the army.
b. Military attire (for which buff was formerly much used); a military coat made of buff; = BUFF-COAT. Also the dress of sergeants and catch-poles. Hence, to wear buff, be in buff.
1590. Shaks., Com. Err., IV. ii. 45. But is in a suite of buffe which rested him.
1599. Bp. Hall, Sat., IV. iv. 42. If Martius in boystrous buffes be drest.
1635. Shirley, Coronat., III. 306. To sell your glorious buffes to buy fine pumps.
1647. R. Stapylton, Juvenal, VI. 419. With men of Buffe and Feather [cumque paludatis Ducibus].
1701. Collier, M. Anton. (1726), Life, 116. Never suffer’d to wear Buff in Italy.
1823. Scott, Peveril (1865), 9. Churchmen, Presbyterians, and all, are in buff and bandoleer for King Charles. Ibid. (1826), Woodst. (1832), 177. Strangled on the pulpit stairs by this man of buff and Belial.
3. colloq. (somewhat arch.) The bare skin. In buff: naked.
[1602. Dekker, Satirom., Wks. 1873, I. 220 (D.). Doe not scorne mee because I goe in Stag, in Buffe.]
1654. Chapman, Rev. for Hon., I. i. For accoutrements you wear the buff.
1749. H. Fitzcotton, Homer, I. 38. If you perplex me with your stuff—All that are here shan’t save your buff.
1803. Bristed, Pedest. Tour, II. 606. He had no change [of linen], consequently he slept in buff.
1872. C. King, Mountain. Sierra Nev., viii. 176. Stripping ourselves to the buff, we hung up our steaming clothes.
4. = buff-stick or buff-wheel: see 9.
1831. J. Holland, Manuf. Metals, I. 292. A wheel similar to the glazer … covered with thick soft or buff leather, whence its name…. These buffs and glazers [etc.].
1884. F. Britten, Watch & Clockm., 37. Soldier’s old belts make very good buffs…. Sticks coated with emery paper are also called buffs.
III. The color, and things so colored. [BUFF a., used as sb.]
5. Buff color; a dull light yellow. Blue and buff were formerly the colors of the Whig party.
1788. Dibdin, Musical Tour, xcvi. 394. The administration is a colour in grain, and will stand when buff and blue shall have entirely flown off.
1794. Stedman, Surinam (1813), II. xxiv. 220. [The water melon’s] color is … partly a very pale buff.
1818. Byron, Juan, Ded. xvii. I still retain my ‘buff and blue.’
1884. A. F. Oakey, in Harper’s Mag., Feb., 349/2. The only colors employed in terra-cotta … were … limited to a gradation of buffs and reds.
Mod. The Edinburgh Review—the venerable blue-and-buff.
6. The Buffs: a popular name given, from the former color of their facings (see BUFF a.), to the old 3rd regiment of the line in the British army (now the East Kent Regiment). Similarly the old 78th regiment (now 2nd Battalion of Seaforth Highlanders) are called the Rossshire Buffs.
1806. Times, 10 Jan., 2/1. The band of the Old Buffs playing Rule Britannia, drums muffled.
1838. Hist. Record 3rd Regim. Foot, 157. The men’s coats were lined and faced with buff; they also wore buff waistcoats, buff breeches and buff stockings, and were emphatically styled ‘The Buffs.’
1848. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., I. 295.
1883. Harper’s Mag., Jan., 319/1. He entered the Buffs in 1817.
7. Pathol. = BUFFY COAT.
1739. J. Huxham, Ess. Fevers (1750), 36. Blood … drawn oft in high inflammatory Fevers … appears covered … with a thick glutinous coat, or Buff.
1782. Daniel, in Med. Commun., I. 22, note. The blood was covered with a buff.
1835–6. Todd, Cycl. Anat. & Phys., I. 420/2. Louis found the blood covered by a firm thick buff at each bleeding in … cases of fatal peripneumony.
1880. Syd. Soc. Lex., s.v., Inflammatory Buff, the buffy coat of coagulated blood.
IV. attrib. and comb.
8. Obvious: as buff accoutrements, belt; buff-hide, -skin; † buff-hard adj.
1599. Hakluyt, Voy., II. 177. Good store of Buffe Hides.
1607. Topsell, Four-f. Beasts, 157. His [the Rhinoceros’] more then buffe-hard skin.
1622. Malynes, Anc. Law-Merch., 81. The Commodities of East-land, and thereabouts … Cables, Canuas, Buffe-hides.
1740. Somerville, Hobbinol, II. 306. His Buff Doublet, larded o’er with Fat Of slaughter’d Brutes.
1727–38. Chambers, Cycl., s.v. Buff, The skin of the buffalo being dressed in oil … makes … buff-skin.
1794. G. Adams, Nat. & Exp. Philos., I. V. 181. A cup, furnished at bottom with a piece of buff-skin.
1813. Wellington, Lett., in Gurw., Disp., XI. 334. Sets of buff accoutrements for the soldiers.
1831. Carlyle, Sart. Res., I. vii. 53. The military classes in those old times, whose buff-belts [and] complicated chains … have been bepainted in modern Romance.
9. Special comb.: buff-jerkin, a military jerkin of buff-leather; also attrib.; buff-stick, buff-wheel, a stick or wheel, covered with buff-leather or other soft material, used in polishing metal; † buff-stop, a stop on a harpsichord or spinet which produces a muffled tone by applying pieces of leather to the strings. See also BUFF-COAT.
a. 1659. Cleveland, May Day, xiv. The *buff-fac’d Sons of War.
1596. Shaks., 1 Hen. IV., I. ii. 49. Is not a *Buffe Ierkin a most sweet robe of durance?
1625. Fletcher, Elder Bro., V. i. Among provant swords, and buff-jerkin men.
1727. Swift, Gulliver, I. i. 24. I had on me a buff jerkin, which they could not pierce.
1881. Greener, Gun, 250. The … gun is then buffed over with a leather *buff stick.
a. 1819. Wolcott (P. Pindar), Wks. (1830), 122 (D.). Like the *buff-stop on harpsichords or spinnets—Muffling their pretty little tuneful throats.
1880. A. J. Hipkins, in Grove, Dict. Mus., I. 691. A ‘buff’-stop of small pieces of leather, brought into contact with the strings, damping the tone.
