buffer

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Pronunciation

• (RP) IPA: /ˈbʌfə(ɹ)/, [ˈbɐfə(ɹ)]
• (America) IPA: /ˈbʌfɚ/
• (Australia) IPA: /ˈbafə(ɹ)/, [ˈbäfə(ɹ)]

Noun

buffer (plural buffers)

1. Someone or something that buffs.
   1. A machine with rotary brushes, passed over a hard floor to clean it.
2. (chemistry) A solution used to stabilize the pH (acidity) of a liquid.
3. (computing) A portion of memory set aside to store data, often before it is sent to an external device or as it is received from an external device.
4. (mechanical) Anything used to maintain slack or isolate different objects.
5. (telecommunications) A routine or storage medium used to compensate for a difference in rate of flow of data, or time of occurrence of events, when transferring data from one device to another.
6. (rail) A device on trains and carriages designed to cushion the impact between them.
   • 1885, W. S. Gilbert, The Mikado, Act II, in The Mikado, and Other Plays, New York: Modern Library, 1917, p. 42,

     The idiot who, in railway carriages, / Scribbles on window panes, / We only suffer / To ride on a buffer / In Parliamentary trains.

   • 1953, C. S. Lewis, The Silver Chair, Collins, 1998, Chapter 14,

     Then, with a shock like a thousand goods trains crashing into a thousand pairs of buffers, the lips of rock closed.

7. (rail) The metal barrier to help prevent trains from running off the end of the track.
8. An isolating circuit, often an amplifier, used to minimize the influence of a driven circuit on the driving circuit.
9. (politics, international relations) A buffer zone (such as a demilitarized zone) or a buffer state.
10. (colloquial) A good-humoured, slow-witted fellow, usually an elderly man.
    • 1955, C. S. Lewis, The Magician's Nephew, Collins, 1998, Chapter 1,

      I can’t expect two youngsters like you to find it much fun talking to an old buffer like me.

11. (figurative) A gap that isolates or separates two things.

Translations

• French: tampon
• German: Puffer
• Portuguese: buffer
• Russian: бу́фер
• Spanish: memoria intermedia

Translations

• French: solution tampon
• Italian: soluzione tampone
• Portuguese: solução tampão
• Spanish: tampón, solución amortiguadora, solución reguladora

Translations

• French: tampon

Verb

buffer (buffers, present participle buffering; past and past participle buffered)

1. To use a buffer or buffers; to isolate or minimize the effects of one thing on another.
2. (computing) To store data in memory temporarily.
3. (chemistry) To maintain the acidity of a solution near a chosen value by adding an acid or a base.

Translations

• French: tamponner
• Italian: tamponare
• Portuguese: tamponar
• Spanish: tamponar

Adjective

1. comparative form of buff

Related terms

• bufferize
• buffer lass
• buffer up
• buffer zone

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