Buffet

Pronunciation

• UK enPR: bo͝o'fā; IPA: /ˈbÊŠfeɪ/, /ˈbÊŒfeɪ/
• US enPR: bÉ™fā', IPA: /bəˈfeɪ/

Borrowing from fr {{2}}.

Full definition of buffet

Noun

1. A counter or sideboard from which food and drinks are served or may be bought.
2. Food laid out in this way, to which diners serve themselves.
3. A small stool; a stool for a buffet or counter.
• Townely MystGo fetch us a light buffet.

Synonyms

• (food): buffet meal, smorgasbord

Pronunciation

• UK enPR: bÅ­'fÄ­t, IPA: /ˈbÊŒfɪt/
• US enPR: bÅ­'fÉ™t, IPA: /ˈbÊŒfÉ™t/

Old French buffet, diminutive of buffe, cognate with Italian buffetto. See buffer, buffoon, and compare German puffen, to jostle, to hustle

Noun

1. A blow or cuff with or as if with the hand, or by any other solid object or the wind.
• Sir Walter ScottOn his cheek a buffet fell.
• Burkethose 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, 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.

Synonyms

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

Verb

1. (transitive) To strike with a buffet; to cuff; to slap.
• Bible, Matthew xxvi. 67They spit in his face and buffeted him.
2. (transitive, figurative) 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
• BroomeThe sudden hurricane in thunder roars,
  Buffets the bark, and whirls it from the shores.
• W. BlackYou 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.

Old French, of unknown origin.

Noun

1. A low stool; a hassock.----