Word Direct Answers

What does "buff" mean?

Buff: The color to buff; a light yellow, shading toward pink, gray, or brown. A visage rough, Deformed, unfeatured, and a skin of buff. Dryden.

Additional senses

  1. 2.A military coat, made of buff leather. Shak.
  2. 3.(Med.) The grayish viscid substance constituting the buffy coat. See Buffy coat, under Buffy, a.
  3. 4.(Mech.) A wheel covered with buff leather, and used in polishing cutlery, spoons, etc.
  4. 5.The bare skin; as, to strip to the buff. [Colloq.] To be in buff is equivalent to being naked. Wright.
  5. 6.Made of buff leather. Goldsmith.
  6. 7.Of the color of buff. Buff coat, a close, military outer garment, with short sleeves, and laced tightly over the chest, made of buffalo skin, or other thick and elastic material, worn by soldiers in the 17th century as a defensive covering. -- Buff jerkin, originally, a leather waistcoat; afterward, one of cloth of a buff color. [Obs.] Nares. -- Buff stick (Mech.), a strip of wood covered with buff leather, used in polishing.
  7. 8.To polish with a buff. See Buff, n., 5.
  8. 9.To strike. [Obs.] B. Jonson.
  9. 10.A buffet; a blow; -- obsolete except in the phrase "Blindman's buff." Nathless so sore a buff to him it lent That made him reel. Spenser.
  10. 11.Firm; sturdy. And for the good old cause stood buff, 'Gainst many a bitter kick and cuff. Hudibras.

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