1851. Mayhew, London Labour and London Poor, II., p. 416. ‘You had
better buff it, Jim,’ says I; but Jim wouldn’t do it, and kept his
trowsers on. Ibid, p. 417. So I locks the door, and buffs it, and
forces myself up, etc.
In buff, phr. (common).—Naked; in a state of nudity. Among English
equivalents are Abram (q.v.) and birthday suit (q.v.), but for all
synonyms, see Nature’s garb.
1602. Dekker, Satiro-Mastix. I go in stag, in buff.
1855. Notes and Queries, 1 S., xi., p. 467. We say of one in a
state of nudity, ‘he is in buff.’
To stand buff, verbal phr. (old).—To stand the brunt; to pay the piper;
to endure without flinching. [From buff, an old pugilistic term for a
blow.]
a. 1680. Butler, Hudibras’s Epitaph. And for the good old cause
stood buff ’Gainst many a bitter kick and cuff.
1697. Vanbrugh, Provoked Wife, I., i. Would my courage come up to a
fourth part of my ill-nature, I’d stand buff to her relations, and
thrust her out of doors.
1737. Fielding, The Miser, Act ii., Sc. 2. Love. How! rascal, is it
you that abandon yourself to those intolerable extravagancies?
Fred. I must even stand buff, and outface him.
1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5 ed.). To stand Buff (v.), to stand
stoutly to a thing, to be resolute and unmoved, though the danger
be great.
1761. Colman, Jealous Wife, V., i., 139. Stick close to my advice
and you may stand buff to a tigress.
1822. Scott, Fortunes of Nigel, ch. xii. ‘Stand buff against the
reproach of thine over-tender conscience.’
Buff-Ball, subs. (vagrants’).—A dancing party in which both sexes dance
together naked. [From buff (q.v.), naked, + ball.] Cf., Ballum rancum.
1880. Greenwood, In Strange Company. The most favourite
entertainment at this place is known as buff-ball, in which both
sexes—innocent of clothing—madly join, stimulated with raw whiskey,
and the music of a fiddle and a tin whistle.
Buffer, subs. (old).—1. A dog. [Considerable obscurity surrounds the
origin of this term. It occurs in varying forms from 1567 down to the
present time. Harman gives it as bufe (1567) and bufa (1573); Rowlands
as buffa (1610); Head as bugher (1673); whilst in The Memorials of John
Hall it first appears as buffer.] Synonymous terms will be found under
Tike.
1567. Harman, Caveat (1814), p. 65. Bufa, a dogge.
1610. Rowlands, Martin Mark-all, p. 37 (H. Club’s Repr., 1874).
Buffa, a Dogge.
1714. Memoirs of John Hall (4 ed.), p. 11. Buffer, a Dog.
1842. Lover, Handy Andy, ch. iv. ‘It is not every day we get a
badger, you know.... Reilly the butcher has two or three capital
dogs, and there’s a wicked mastiff below stairs, and I’ll send for
my ‘buffer’ and we’d have some spanking sport.’
1876. C. Hindley, Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 162. They
had a dog belonging to them that would be sure to begin a quarrel
with another buffer, whenever his master or mistress found a match.
2. (common.)—A man; a fellow—sometimes used with a slightly
contemptuous meaning; generally speaking a familiar mode of address, as
in Old Buffer, although even this form may be used disparagingly.
1749. H. Fitzcotton, Homer, I. (1748), 23. You’re a buffer always
rear’d in The brutal pleasures of Bear-garden, [M.]
1837. Barham, I. L. (The Bagman’s Dog).
So I’ll merely observe, as the water grew rougher,
The more my poor hero continued to suffer,
Till the Sailors themselves cried, in pity, ‘Poor buffer!’
1882. F. Anstey, Vice Versâ, ch. xiv. ‘I made a first-rate
booby-trap, though, one day for an old yellow buffer who came in to
see you.’
3. (pugilistic.)—A boxer; one of ‘the fancy.’ [Hotten gives this as of
Irish origin, but it would rather seem to come from O.E. buff, a blow.]
1819. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress, p. 7.
Last Tuesday, at Moulsey, the Balance of Power
Was settled by twelve Tightish Rounds in an hour,
The Buffers, both ‘Boys of the Holy Ground.’—Ibid, p. 51:—
Yet, sprightly to the Scratch both Buffers came,
While ribbers rung from each resounding frame,
And divers digs, and many a ponderous pelt,
Were on their broad bread-baskets heard and felt.
With roving aim, but aim that rarely miss’d,
Round lugs and ogles flew the frequent fist;
While showers of facers told so deadly well,
That the crush’d jaw-bones crackled as they fell!