# buffalo
## English
### Etymology

Borrowed from Portuguese or Spanish búfalo (“buffalo”), from Late Latin būfalus, from Latin būbalus, from Ancient Greek βούβαλος (boúbalos, “antelope, wild ox”). Doublet of bubale and buffle.

### Pronunciation

* (Received Pronunciation) IPA: /ˈbʌf.əl.əʊ/
** Audio (UK):(file)
* (US) enPR: bŭf'ə-lō, IPA: /ˈbʌf.ə.loʊ/
** Audio (US):(file)

### Noun

buffalo (plural buffaloes or buffalos or buffalo)
* An animal from the subtribe Bubalina, also known as true buffalos, such as the Cape buffalo, Syncerus caffer, or the water buffalo, Bubalus bubalis.
    Synonym: (obsolete) buffle
** 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:"It must be a very wild stretch of country, and full of big game. I have always wanted to kill a buffalo before I die."
** 1922 February, James Joyce, Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC:And on this board were frightful swords and knives that are made in a great cavern by swinking demons out of white flames that they fix in the horns of buffalos and stags that there abound marvellously.
** 1974, Gil Scott-Heron (lyrics and music), “Winter in America”, in Winter in America:From the Indians who welcomed the pilgrims / And to the buffaloes who once ruled the plain / Like the vultures / Circling beneath the dark clouds / Looking for the rain / Well, they've been looking for the rain
** 2015, “Arunachal Pradesh”, in H. M. Bareh, editor, Encyclopaedia Of North-East India‎, 1st edition, Mittal Publications, →ISBN, archived from the original on 2022-11-11, page 72:The feuds between Namsang and Borduria continued. In 1875-76 the dispute between the Namsang and Borduria arose about the buffaloes which were carried off by Borduria people from Namsang areas.
* A related North American animal, the American bison, Bison bison.
* Ellipsis of buffalo robe.
* The buffalo fish (Ictiobus spp.).
* (US slang) A nickel.
* (slang, US, historical) A looter during the Civil War.
* (slang, derogatory) A large or stupid person.
* (slang, derogatory) An obese person, usually a woman.
* (slang, derogatory, offensive) A black male.
* Short for American buffalo (“gold bullion coin”).

#### Derived terms

* African buffalo (Syncerus caffer)
* American buffalo
* antibuffalo
* atomic buffalo turd
* beefalo
* Bremelo
* buffalo bean
* buffalo-berry
* buffaloberry, buffalo berry (Shepherdia spp.)
* buffalo bird
* buffalo bug (Dermestidae spp.)
* buffalo-bur
* buffalo bur, buffalo burr
* buffaloburger
* buffalo-bur nightshade
* buffalo-burr
* buffalo chip
* Buffalo City
* buffalo clover
* Buffalo County
* buffalo fly (Haematobia exigua)
* Buffalo Gap
* buffalo gnat (Simuliidae)
* buffalo grass
* Buffalo Grove
* buffalo hump
* buffalo jump
* buffalopox
* Buffalo River
* buffalo robe
* buffalo sauce
* buffalo-skin
* buffalo soldier
* buffalo thorn (Ziziphus mucronata)
* Buffalo Trace
* buffalo weaver (Bubalornis, Dinemellia)
* buffalo wing
* buffalo worm (Alphitobius diaperinus)
* buffalypso
* buffarilla
* Cape buffalo
* catalo
* cattalo
* cattelo
* North American buffalo
* plains buffalo
* water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis)
* water buffalo calf
* wood buffalo
* Wood Buffalo
* yakalo

#### Translations

    The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

#### See also

* Appendix:Animals
* Appendix:English collective nouns

### Verb

buffalo (third-person singular simple present buffaloes, present participle buffaloing, simple past and past participle buffaloed)
* (transitive) To hunt buffalo.
* (US, slang, transitive) To outwit, confuse, deceive, or intimidate.
    Synonyms: cow; see also Thesaurus:intimidate
** 1983, Sam Shepard, Fool for Love, San Francisco: City Lights Books, page 20:I'm just gonna let you have it. Probably in the midst of a kiss. Right when you think everything’s been healed up. Right in the moment when you're sure you've got me buffaloed. That's when you'll die.
** 1984, J. Victor Baldridge, The Campus and the Microcomputer Revolution, Macmillan, →ISBN, page xi:The nontechnical administrator should never be buffaloed by the esoteric vocabulary and the endless jargon of the computer expert.
** 1998, John Updike, Bech At Bay, Random House, →ISBN, page 287:He was speaking to an indifferent audience of pale polite faces, in an overheated space on the Northern edge of Europe, a subcontinent whose natives for a few passing centuries had bullied and buffaloed the rest of the world.
** 2006, William Zinsser, On Writing Well:If nonfiction is where you do your best writing, or your best teaching of writing, don't be buffaloed into the idea that it's an inferior species.
* (archaic, transitive) To pistol-whip.
** 1931, Stuart N. Lake, Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal, New York: Houghton Mifflin, page 173:Whereupon the twelve-inch barrel of the Buntline Special was laid alongside and just underneath the Rachal hatbrim most effectively. The buffaloed cattleman dropped to the walk, unconscious.
** 1975, Cliff Farrell, The Mighty Land, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, →ISBN, page 111:He walked arrogant and scornful among the Texans and cavalrymen whom he hazed and buffaloed with the barrels of his guns when they got out of line.

#### Translations
### References

* “buffalo”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
* “buffalo n.$^1$”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang, Jonathon Green, 2016–present
* “buffalo n.$^2$”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang, Jonathon Green, 2016–present
* “buffalo v.”, in Green’s Dictionary of Slang, Jonathon Green, 2016–present

## Northern Sami
### Etymology

Borrowed from English buffalo.

### Pronunciation

* (Kautokeino) IPA: /ˈpuffalo/

### Noun

buffalo
* buffalo (Asian or African)

#### Inflection

This noun needs an inflection-table template.

#### Further reading

* Koponen, Eino, Ruppel, Klaas, Aapala, Kirsti, editors (2002–2008), Álgu database: Etymological database of the Saami languages‎, Helsinki: Research Institute for the Languages of Finland