buff

Etymology 1

From buffe (“leather”), from Middle French buffle (“buffalo”).

noun

1. Undyed leather from the skin of buffalo or similar animals.
2. A tool, often one covered with buff leather, used for polishing.
3. (color) A brownish yellow colour.
   buff:
   1693, John Dryden (translator), The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis Translated into English Verse, London: Jacob Tonson, Satire 10, lines 307-308, p. 203, […] a Visage rough, Deform’d, Unfeatur’d, and a Skin of Buff.
   His face changed from tan to buff. 1929, Dashiell Hammett, chapter 24, in Red Harvest
4. A military coat made of buff leather.
5. (informal) A person who is very interested in a particular subject.
   He’s a real history buff. He knows everything there is to know about the civil war.
6. (video games, roleplaying games) An effect that makes a character or item stronger.
   I just picked up an epic damage buff! Let's go gank the other team!
7. (rail transport) Compressive coupler force that occurs during a slack bunched condition.
8. (colloquial) The bare skin.
   to strip to the buff
   To be in buff, is equivalent to being naked. 1880, Thomas Wright, “buff”, in Dictionary of obsolete and provincial English, containing words from the English writers previous to the nineteenth century which are no longer in use, or are not used in the same sense. And words which are now used only in the provincial dialects, volume 1, London: George Bell and Sons, page 265
   Not to mention, nudity can be just plain convenient. “Laundry is minimal,” Schulte notes. It also doesn’t hurt that being in the buff spices up his workday. 18-10-2021, Ian Lecklitzner, “The Inevitable Rise of the Work-From-Home Nudist”, in MEL Magazine
9. The greyish viscid substance constituting the buffy coat.
10. Any substance used to dilute (street) drugs in order to increase profits.
    2014, “Aldergrove’s 856 gang busted, $400,000 in drugs seized,” CBC News, 30 July, 2014, Police say this 20 ton hydraulic jack was used to press mixtures of cocaine and “buff” into brick.

adj

1. (color) Of the color of buff leather, a brownish yellow.
2. (bodybuilding) Unusually muscular.
   The bouncer was a big, buff dude with tattoos, a shaved head, and a serious scowl.
3. (slang) Physically attractive.
   That's right: I'm taking driver's ed next semester. Hiring an interpreter for CHS and the deaf school outta my own hefty pockets. You're welcome. Oh, and I'm going to get really skinny and buff. All slim like a swimsuit model. 2011, Josh Berk, The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin, Random House Digital, Inc., page 244

verb

1. To polish and make shiny by rubbing.
   He was already buffing the car's hubs.
2. (video games, roleplaying games) To make a character or an item stronger.
   The enchanter buffed the paladin to prepare him to fight the dragon.
   I noticed that the pistols were buffed in the update.
3. (medical slang) To modify a medical chart, especially in a dishonest manner.
   "Sure thing, I buffed her, and they turfed her to urology, but she bounced back to me!" … They attempted to transfer her to urology by modifying her chart (buffing it) to request urine tests, but the doctors in urology sent (bounced) her back. 1996, Jeffrey E. Nash, James M. Calonico, The Meaning of Social Interaction: An Introduction to Social Psychology, page 139
   The implication of such an action is an invitation to buff the chart. The medical records department could have prevented the falsification by sending a copy of the chart to the attorney at the same time that they notified the hospital physician of the attorney's request for the chart. 2004, Gregory Davis, Pathology and Law, page 121

Etymology 2

Old French bufer (“to cuff, buffet”). See buffet (“a blow”).

verb

1. To strike.
   Bravely run Red-hood, / There was a shock, / To have buff’d out the blood / From ought but a block. a. 1640, Ben Jonson, The Under-wood, page 277

noun

1. (obsolete) A buffet; a blow.
   A man must consider what a blind-man’s-buff is this game of conformity. If I know your sect I anticipate your argument. 1841, Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance”, in Essays: First Series

Etymology 3

From Middle English buffen (“to stutter, stammer”), from Old English byffan (“to mumble, mutter”), from Proto-West Germanic *bubjaną, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰeyH- (“to fear, to be afraid”). More at bive (“tremble, shake”) and bever.

verb

1. (dialectal or obsolete) To stammer, stutter

Etymology 4

Clipping of buffalo.

noun

1. (informal) A buffalo, or the meat of a buffalo.
   […] diced buff (buffalo) meat, usually heavily spiced […] 2006, Bradley Mayhew, Joe Bindloss, Stan Armington, Nepal
   You will eat water buffalo meat and drink boiled water buffalo milk: buff burgers at Aunt Jane's restaurant, buff mo-mos which are the Tibetan won-tons, and buff steaks at The Globe. 1992, Marilyn Stablein, The Census Taker: Stories of a Traveler in India and Nepal, page 62

Etymology 5

noun

1. (uncommon) Alternative form of buffe (“face armor”)
   For they had helmets on their heads, fashioned like wild beast's necks, and strange beavers or buffs to the same, and wore on their helmets great high plumes of feathers, as they had been wings : […] 1899, Selected Lives (orig. by Plutarch), page 317