Buff

How to spell buff

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce buff

What does buff mean?

1. nounA person who is keenly interested in and knowledgeable about a particular subject.
2. verbTo polish something by rubbing it with a soft material.
3. adjectiveOf a pale yellowish-brown colour.
4. adjectivePhysically fit and noticeably muscular (informal).

Buff in a sentence

• noun

  Her father is a film buff who owns hundreds of restored classics.

• verb

  He used a soft cloth to buff the brass door handle until it gleamed.

• adjective

  The office filed every report in a plain buff folder.

• adjective

  Months at the gym left him looking remarkably buff by the summer.

• noun

  As a history buff, he could date almost any old coin on sight.

• verb

  The detailer will buff the car bonnet to remove the fine scratches.

Where does buff come from?

Language of origin: French

The word traces back to the French buffle, meaning 'buffalo' or 'wild ox', which itself came from the Latin bufalus and ultimately the Greek boubalos, a name for an African antelope or wild ox. English borrowed it in the 1500s, first as a term for the buffalo, and then for the strong, pale yellowish leather made from ox hide, known as buff leather. That leather's soft surface explains the verb 'to buff', meaning to polish by rubbing, since cloth and leather pads were used to bring up a shine, and the pale colour of the hide gave us 'buff' as the name for a light brownish-yellow shade. The slang meaning of 'an enthusiast' is delightfully specific: in nineteenth-century New York the volunteer firefighters wore buff-coloured coats, and the eager onlookers who followed the fire engines became known as buffs. The informal sense of 'physically fit and muscular' is the most recent twist, popularised in the late twentieth century, perhaps echoing the idea of a body polished and toned to a fine finish.

How the word is built

• buff (from buffe, a buffalo or wild ox; later the pale ox-hide leather of that animal)