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buffer

Pronunciation: /ˈbʌfə/

The English word “buffer” has 20 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. A machine with rotary brushes, passed over a hard floor to clean it.
  2. A machine for polishing shoes and boots.
  3. A boxer.
  4. A solution used to stabilize the pH (acidity) of a liquid, such as by resisting a change in pH when an acid or alkali is added.
  5. Anything used to maintain slack or isolate different objects.
  6. A device on trains and carriages designed to cushion the impact between them.
  7. The barrier placed at the end of the track to absorb the impact of a train that fails to stop.
  8. An isolating circuit, often an amplifier, used to minimize the influence of a driven circuit on the driving circuit.
  9. 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.
  10. 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.
  11. A buffer zone (such as a demilitarized zone) or a buffer state.
  12. A means, often normally idle inventory, used as a cushion against fluctuations in business, especially in the supply or demand for goods.
  13. A reserve of funds set aside for use only when adverse circumstances prevail.
  14. A gap that isolates or separates two things.
  15. The chief boatswain's mate.
  16. A good-humoured, slow-witted fellow, usually an elderly man.

verb

  1. To use a buffer or buffers; to attempt to isolate or minimize the effects of one thing or another.
  2. To queue up (an input) so that it is performed immediately once it is possible.
  3. To store (data) in memory temporarily while it is awaiting processing.
  4. To maintain the acidity of a solution near a chosen value by adding an acid or a base.

Etymology

From buff + -er.

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.