buffet

Borrowing from French buffet.

• (UK) enPR: bo͝o'fā, bŭ'fā; IPA^(key): /ˈbʊfeɪ/, /ˈbʌfeɪ/
• (US) enPR: bəfā', IPA^(key): /bəˈfeɪ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

buffet (plural buffets)

1. A counter or sideboard from which food and drinks are served or may be bought.

   Synonyms: sideboard, smorgasbord, cupboard (obsolete)

   • 1909, Archibald Marshall [pseudonym; Arthur Hammond Marshall], chapter I, in The Squire’s Daughter, London: Methuen, OCLC 12026604; republished New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1919, OCLC 491297620:

     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

3. A small stool; a stool for a buffet or counter.
   • (Can we date this quote by Wakefield Mystery Plays as well as title, page, and other details?)

     Go fetch us a light buffet.

• Japanese: ビュッフェ
• Korean: 뷔페 (bwipe)
• Lao: Template:lo-l
• Thai: บุฟเฟต์ (búp-fêe)

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

• enPR: bŭfʹĭt, IPA^(key): /ˈbʌfɪt/

buffet (plural buffets)

1. A blow or cuff with or as if with the hand, or by any other solid object or the wind.

   Synonyms: blow, collision (by any solid object), cuff (with the hand)

   • (Can we date this quote?) Sir Walter Scott

     On his cheek a buffet fell.

   • (Can we date this quote?) Edmund Burke

     those planks of tough and hardy oak that used for years to brave the buffets of the Bay of Biscay

   • 1960, P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves in the Offing, chapter VII and XIV:

     Kipper stood blinking, as I had sometimes seen him do at the boxing tourneys in which he indulged when in receipt of a shrewd buffet on some tender spot like the tip of the nose.

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

• enPR: bŭfʹĭt, IPA^(key): /ˈbʌfɪt/

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

1. (transitive) To strike with a buffet; to cuff; to slap.
   • Bible, Matthew xxvi. 67

     They spit in his face and buffeted him.

2. (transitive, figuratively) to aggressively challenge, denounce, or criticise.
   • 2013 May 23, Sarah Lyall, "British Leader’s Liberal Turn Sets Off a Rebellion in His Party," 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.

   to buffet the billows

   • (Can we date this quote?) William Broome

     The sudden hurricane in thunder roars, / Buffets the bark, and whirls it from the shores.

   • 1830, Joseph Plumb Martin, A Narrative of Some of the Adventures, Dangers and Sufferings of a Revolutionary Soldier, Ch. I:

     […] I buffetted heat and mosquetoes, and got the hay all up […]

   • 1887, William Black, Sabina Zembra, Ch. XLVI:

     You are lucky fellows who can live in a dreamland of your own, instead of being buffeted about the world.

4. To deaden the sound of (bells) by muffling the clapper.

From Old French [Term?], of unknown origin.

buffet (plural buffets)

1. A low stool; a hassock.

• buffet on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Borrowed from French buffet.

• IPA^(key): /ˈbyfːeː/, [ˈbyfːe̞ː]
• (nonstandard) IPA^(key): /ˈbufːetːi/, [ˈbufːe̞t̪ːi]

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 Finnish nouns don't end in -t 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.

Most 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.

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)”).

• IPA^(key): /by.fɛ/

• Audio

  (file)

buffet m (plural buffets)

1. sideboard, dresser
2. (food) buffet

• “buffet” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

• “buffet” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Borrowed from French buffet.

buffet m (invariable)

1. (furniture) sideboard

   Synonym: dispensa

2. buffet, refreshment bar

• buffé, buffe

Borrowed 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 - a buffet (meal which guests can serve themselves)

• buffé, buffe

Borrowed 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 (counter or room where refreshments are sold)
3. ståande buffet - a buffet (meal which guests can serve themselves)

• bifê
• bufê

Borrowed from French buffet.

• IPA^(key): /bi.ˈfe/

buffet m (plural buffets)

1. buffet (food laid out so diners may serve themselves)

• bufet

Borrowed from French buffet.

buffet m (plural buffets)

1. buffet