buffet
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: enpr: bo͝o'fā
enpr: bŭ'fā
ipa: /ˈbʊ.feɪ/
ipa: /ˈbʌ.feɪ/
enpr: bəfā'
ipa: /bəˈfeɪ/
ipa: /bʌˈfeɪ/
note: Indic
ipa: /bəˈfe/
note: Indic
ipa: /ˈbʊf.e/
rhymes: (US) -eɪ
enpr: bŭfʹĭt
ipa: /ˈbʌf.ɪt/
ipa: /ˈbʌf.ət/
Forms: form: buffets
form: buffeting
form: buffetting
form: buffeted
form: buffeted
form: buffetted
form: buffetted
Etymology: From Middle English buffeten, from Old French buffeter, from the noun (see above).
Senses: examples: text: They spit in his face and buffeted him.
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 26:67:
glosses: To strike with a buffet; to cuff; to slap.
examples: text: Is Burns obscure because he was gay and therefore ignorable until the Gay Rights Movement began? Or does he largely deserve his neglect? An answer requires that one examine not only Burns' books, but also the critical environment in which he was much buffeted — which, we are told, drove him to an early grave.
ref: 1977 August 20, Robert Etherington, “John Horne Burns and His Enemies”, in Gay Community News, volume 5, number 7, page 10:
text: 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.
ref: 2013 May 23, Sarah Lyall, “British Leader’s Liberal Turn Sets Off a Rebellion in His Party”, in New York Times, retrieved 29 May 2013:
glosses: To aggressively challenge, denounce, or criticise.
examples: text: to buffet the billows
text: The sudden hurricane in thunder roars, / Buffets the bark, and whirls it from the shores.
ref: 1726, William Broome, epistle to Elijah Fenton:
text: [...] I buffetted heat and mosquetoes, and got the hay all up [...]
ref: 1830, Joseph Plumb Martin, “Ch. I”, in A Narrative of Some of the Adventures, Dangers and Sufferings of a Revolutionary Soldier:
text: You are lucky fellows who can live in a dreamland of your own, instead of being buffeted about the world—
ref: 1887, William Black, “A Keepsake”, in Sabina Zembra […], volume III, London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC, page 146:
text: Atlantic gales constantly buffet Morwenstow, whose seven hamlets together constitute Cornwall's most northerly parish. The village is dotted with trees moulded into weird shapes by the wind, and above the trees rise the vicarage chimneystacks resembling miniature church towers.
ref: 1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 288:
glosses: To affect as with blows; to strike repeatedly; to strive with or contend against.
glosses: To deaden the sound of (bells) by muffling the clapper.
examples: text: Again the chirpy tone did nothing to pacify the woman holding on to her ankles. Soon Zoe was buffeting back and forward through the hole.
ref: 2012, David Walliams [pseudonym; David Edward Williams], “Tug of War”, in Ratburger, London: HarperCollins Children’s Books, →ISBN, pages 200–201:
glosses: To struggle, contend; also in figurative or extended use: to move as if driven by force.