subs. (common).—1. The bare skin; nakedness. Hence as verb = to strip: also TO BUFF IT; IN BUFF = naked: see NATURE’S GARB.
1602. DEKKER, Satiromastix. I go in stag, IN BUFF.
1654. CHAPMAN, Revenge for Honour, i., 1.
| Then for accoutrements you wear the BUFF, | |
| As you believed it heresy to change | |
| For linen: surely most of yours is spent | |
| In lint. |
1742. JARVIS, Don Quixote, 1, III, viii. The slaves … had stripped the commissary to his BUFF.
1749. H. FITZCOTTON, Homer, I., 38.
| If you perplex me with your stuff— | |
| All that are here shan’t save your BUFF. |
1760. C. JOHNSTONE, Chrysal, II., 235. ‘I have got as many clothes, and things of all kinds, as would serve to set up a Monmouth-street merchant. If the place had held out but a few days longer, the poor devils must have done duty in BUFF. Hah! hah! hah!’ ‘And the properest dress for them:’ (returned the Admiral) ‘Who wants any clothes in such a climate as this?’
1772. BRIDGES, A Burlesque Translation of Homer, 26. Yet, tho’ you’ll box the devil IN BUFF … Ibid., 54. As in BUFF the gen’ral lay. Ibid., 297. Trimming her bewitching BUFF.
1824. J. HUGHES, The Magic Lay of the One-Horse Shay (Blackwood’s Magazine). When our pair were soused enough, and returned in their BUFF.
1812. COLMAN, Poetical Vagaries, 145.
| Titian’s fam’d Goddess, in luxurious BUFF, | |
| Was the first Piece the Parson thrust his nose on. |
1851. H. MAYHEW, London Labour and the London Poor, II. 416. ‘You had better BUFF it, Jim,’ says I; but Jim wouldn’t do it, and kept his trowsers on. Ibid., 417. So I locks the door, and BUFFS it, and forces myself up, etc.
1855. Notes and Queries, 1., xi., 467. We say of one in a state of nudity, ‘he is in BUFF.’
1856. H. MAYHEW, The Great World of London, 223. There’s a fine young chap there, stript to the BUFF, and working away hard!
1872. C. KING, Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada, viii., 176. Stripping ourselves to the BUFF, we hung up our steaming clothes.
2. (old).—A man; a fellow; also buffer (q.v.).
1708. KERSEY, Dictionary, s.v. BUFF, … a wild Beast like an Ox; also a dull Sot, or dronish Fellow.
1709. The British Apollo, II, 8, 3, 2.
| O, Tell me Grave BUFFS, | |
| Partly Gods, partly Men. |
1725. A New Canting Dictionary, s.v. BUFF, a Newgate Cant Word used in familiar salutation as, How dost do, my BUFF?
1748. SMOLLETT, Roderick Random, iv., 15. Mayhaps old BUFF has left my kinsman here his heir.
1764. BRIDGES, A Burlesque Translation of Homer (1797), ii., 420. You seem afraid these BUFFS will flinch.
TO BUFF IT, verb. phr. (common).—1. To swear to; to adhere to a statement hard and fast; to stand firm: also TO BUFF IT HOME.
1819. J. H. VAUX, A Vocabulary of the Flash Language, s.v. BUFF, to BUFF to a person or thing, is to swear to the identity of them.
1881. New York Slang Dictionary. BUFFING IT HOME is swearing point-blank to anything, about the same as bluffing it, making a bold stand on no backing.
2. See BUFF, subs. 1.
TO STAND BUFF, verb. phr. (old).—To stand the brunt; to pay the piper; to endure without flinching.
c. 1680. BUTLER, Hudibras’s Epitaph.
| And for the good old cause STOOD BUFF, | |
| ’Gainst many a bitter kick and cuff. |
c. 1696. B. E., A New Dictionary of the Canting Crew, s.v. BUFF, TO STAND BUFF, to stand Tightly or Resolutely to any thing.
1697. VANBRUGH, The Provoked Wife, I., i. Would my courage come up to a fourth part of my ill-nature, I’d STAND BUFF to her relations, and thrust her out of doors.
1737. FIELDING, The Miser, ii., 2. Love. How! rascal, is it you that abandon yourself to those intolerable extravagancies? Fred. I must even STAND BUFF, and outface him.
1748. T. DYCHE, A New General English Dictionary (5 ed.). TO STAND BUFF (v.), to stand stoutly to a thing, to be resolute and unmoved, though the danger be great.
1761. COLMAN, The Jealous Wife, V., i., 139. Stick close to my advice and you may STAND BUFF to a tigress.
1822. SCOTT, The Fortunes of Nigel, xii. ‘STAND BUFF against the reproach of thine over-tender conscience.’
THE BUFFS. See BUFF HOWARDS.
PHRASES:—TO SAY NEITHER BUFF NOR BAFF (NOT TO SAY BUFF TO A WOLF’S SHOULDER, or TO KNOW NEITHER BUFF NOR STYE) = to say neither one thing nor another; to know nothing at all.
1542. UDALL, The Apophthegmes of Erasmus, 12. A certaine persone being of hym [Socrates] bidden good speede, saied to him againe, NEITHER BUFF NE BAFF [that is, made him no kind of answer]. Neither was Socrates therewith any thing discontented.
