Definition of "buffer"

Someone or something that buffs (polishes and makes shiny).

1. A machine with rotary brushes, passed over a hard floor to clean it.  examples

2. A machine for polishing shoes and boots.  examples

Comparative form of buff: more buff.  examples

(chemistry) A solution used to stabilize the pH (acidity) of a liquid.  examples

(computing) A portion of memory set aside to temporarily store data, often before it is sent to an external device or as it is received from an external device.  examples

Anything used to isolate or minimize the effect of one thing on another.

1. (mechanical) Anything used to maintain slack or isolate different objects.  examples

2. (telecommunications) A routine or storage medium used to compensate for a difference in rate of flow of data, or time of occurrence of events, when transferring data from one device to another.  examples

3. (rail transport) A device on trains and carriages designed to cushion the impact between them.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • The idiot who, in railway carriages, / Scribbles on window panes, / We only suffer / To ride on a buffer / In Parliamentary trains.

     1885, W. S. Gilbert, The Mikado, Act II, in The Mikado, and Other Plays, New York: Modern Library, 1917, p. 42

   • Then, with a shock like a thousand goods trains crashing into a thousand pairs of buffers, the lips of rock closed.

     1953, C. S. Lewis, chapter 14, in The Silver Chair, Collins, published 1998

4. (rail transport) The metal barrier to help prevent trains from running off the end of the track.  examples

5. An isolating circuit, often an amplifier, used to minimize the influence of a driven circuit on the driving circuit.  examples

6. (politics, international relations) A buffer zone (such as a demilitarized zone) or a buffer state.  examples

7. (figurative) A gap that isolates or separates two things.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • An utterly emphatic 5-0 victory was ultimately capped by two wonder strikes in the last two minutes from Aston Villa midfielder Gary Gardner. Before that, England had utterly dominated to take another purposeful stride towards the 2013 European Championship in Israel. They have already established a five-point buffer at the top of Group Eight.

     2011 November 10, Jeremy Wilson, “England Under 21 5 Iceland Under 21 0: match report”, in Telegraph‎

(UK, nautical, slang) The chief boatswain's mate.  quotations

To use a buffer or buffers; to isolate or minimize the effects of one thing on another.  quotations

1. (video games) To queue up (an input) so that it is performed immediately once it is possible.  examples

(computing) To store data in memory temporarily.  examples

(chemistry) To maintain the acidity of a solution near a chosen value by adding an acid or a base.  examples

(colloquial) A good-humoured, slow-witted fellow, usually an elderly man.  quotations  examples