buffet

Meanings

Noun

• A counter or sideboard from which food and drinks are served or may be bought.
• Food laid out in this way, to which diners serve themselves.
• A small stool; a stool for a buffet or counter.
• A blow or cuff with or as if with the hand, or by any other solid object or the wind.
• A low stool; a hassock.

Verb

• To strike with a buffet; to cuff; to slap.
• to aggressively challenge, denounce, or criticise.
• To affect as with blows; to strike repeatedly; to strive with or contend against.
• To deaden the sound of (bells) by muffling the clapper.

Origin

• From French buffet.
• From Middle English buffet, from Old French buffet, diminutive of buffe, cognate with Italian buffetto. See buffer, buffoon, and compare German puffen.
• From Middle English buffeten, from Old French buffeter, from the noun (see above).
• Possibly from Middle French buffet ("side table"), of unknown origin.