Chapter Buff to Bullet of B by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Buff to Bullet

Buff Buff is a contraction of buffle or buffalo; and buff skin is the skin of the buffalo prepared. “To stand in buff” is to stand without clothing in one's bare skin. “To strip to the buff” is to strip to the skin. The French for “buff” is buffle, which also means a buffalo.
   To stand buff, also written bluff, meaning firm, without flinching. Sheridan, in his School for Scandal, ii. 3, says, “That he should have stood bluff to old bachelor so long, and sink into a husband at last.” It is a nautical term; a “bluff shore” is one with a bold and almost perpendicular front. The word buff, a blow or buffet, may have got confounded with bluff, but without doubt numerous instances of “buff” can be adduced.

“And for the good old cause stood buff,
`Gainst many a bitter kick and cuff.”
Butler: Hudibras's Epitaph.

“I must even stand buff and outface him.”- Fielding.

BUFF in “Blind-man's buff,” the well-known game, is an allusion to the three buffs or pats which the “blind-man” gets when he has caught a player. (Norman- French, buffe, a blow; Welsh, paff, verb, paffio, to thump; our buffet is a little slap.)

Buffalo Bill Colonel Cody.

Buffalo Robe (A ). The skin of a bison dressed without removing the hair, and used as a travelling rug. The word “robe” is often omitted.

“The large and roomy sleigh was decked with buffalo robes, red-bound, and furnished with sham eyes and ears.”- The Upper Ten Thousand, p. 4.

“Leaving all hands under their buffaloes.”- Kane: Arctic Expedition.

Buffer of a railway carriage is an apparatus to rebuff or deaden the force of collision.

Buffer (A ). A chap. The French bouffer (older form, bauffer) meant to eat, as il bauffera tout seul. If this is the basis of the word, a buffer is one who eats with us, called a Commoner in our universities.

“I always said the old buffer would.”- Miss Braddon: Lady Audley's Secret.

Buffoon means one who puffs out his cheeks, and makes a ridiculous explosion by causing them suddenly to collapse. This being a standing trick with clowns, caused the name to be applied to low jesters. The Italian baffare is “to puff out the cheeks for the purpose of making an explosion;” our puff. (Italian buffone, a buffoon; French bouffon.)

Buffoons Names synonymous with Buffoon: -

Bobêche.	A clown in a small theatre in the Boulevart du Temple, Paris. (1815-1825.)
Galimafré.	A contemporary and rival of the former.
Tabarin.	(Of the seventeenth century.)
Bruscambille.
Grimaldi.	(1779-1837.) (See Scaramouch.)

Buffs The old 3rd regiment of foot soldiers. The men's coats were lined and faced with buff, they also wore buff waistcoats, buff breeches, and buff stockings. These are the “Old Buffs,” raised in 1689.
   At one time called the Buff Howards, from Howard their colonel (1737-1749).
   The “Young Buffs” are the old 31st Foot raised in 1702; now called the “Huntingdonshire Regiment,” whose present uniform is scarlet with buff facings.
   The Rothshire Buffs. The old 78th, now the second battalion of the Seaforth Highlanders.

Bugaboo A monster, or goblin, introduced into the tales of the old Italian romancers. (See below. )

Bugbear A scarecrow. Bug is the Welsh bwg, a hobgoblin, called in Russia buka. Spenser says, “A ghastly bug doth greatly them affear” (book ii. canto 3); and Hamlet has “bugs and goblins” (v. 2).

“Warwick was a bug that feared us all.”
Shakespeare: 3 Henry IV., v. 3.

“To the world no bug bear is so great
As want of figure and a small estate.”
Pope: Satires, iii. 67-68.

    The latter half of this word is somewhat doubtful. The Welsh bár =ire, fury, wrath, whence barog, spiteful, seems probable.