German

Alternative forms

• Büfett

Noun

Buffet n ‎(genitive Buffets, plural Buffets)

1. (cooking) buffet
2. (furniture) sideboard, buffet

Declension

English

Pronunciation

• (UK) enPR: bo͝o'fā, bŭ'fā; IPA^(key): /ˈbʊfeɪ/, /ˈbʌfeɪ/
• (US) enPR: bəfā', IPA^(key): /bəˈfeɪ/

Noun

buffet ‎(plural buffets)

1. A counter or sideboard from which food and drinks are served or may be bought.
   • 1909, Archibald Marshall, The Squire's Daughter, chapterI:

     They stayed together during three dances, went out on to the terrace, explored wherever they were permitted to explore, paid two visits to the buffet, and enjoyed themselves much in the same way as if they had been school-children surreptitiously breaking loose from an assembly of grown-ups.

2. Food laid out in this way, to which diners serve themselves.
3. A small stool; a stool for a buffet or counter.
   • Townely Myst

     Go fetch us a light buffet.

Synonyms

• (furniture): sideboard, smorgasbord; cupboard (obsolete)
• (food): buffet meal, smorgasbord

Translations

Etymology 2

From Old French buffet, diminutive of buffe, cognate with Italian buffetto. See buffer, buffoon, and compare German puffen, to jostle, to hustle

Pronunciation

• (UK) enPR: bŭ'fĭt, IPA^(key): /ˈbʌfɪt/
• (US) enPR: bŭ'fət, IPA^(key): /ˈbʌfət/

Noun

buffet ‎(plural buffets)

1. A blow or cuff with or as if with the hand, or by any other solid object or the wind.
   • Sir Walter Scott

     On his cheek a buffet fell.

   • Burke

     those planks of tough and hardy oak that used for years to brave the buffets of the Bay of Biscay

   • 1960, P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves in the Offing, chapter VII and XIV:

     Kipper stood blinking, as I had sometimes seen him do at the boxing tourneys in which he indulged when in receipt of a shrewd buffet on some tender spot like the tip of the nose.

Synonyms

• (blow): blow, collision (by any solid object), cuff (with the hand)

Verb

buffet ‎(third-person singular simple present buffets, present participle buffeting or buffetting, simple past and past participle buffeted or buffetted)

1. (transitive) To strike with a buffet; to cuff; to slap.
   • Bible, Matthew xxvi. 67

     They spit in his face and buffeted him.

2. (transitive, figuratively) to aggressively challenge, denounce, or criticise.
   • 2013 May 23, Sarah Lyall, "British Leader’s Liberal Turn Sets Off a Rebellion in His Party," New York Times (retrieved 29 May 2013):

     Buffeted by criticism of his policy on Europe, battered by rebellion in the ranks over his bill to legalize same-sex marriage and wounded by the perception that he is supercilious, contemptuous and out of touch with mainstream Conservatism, Mr. Cameron earlier this week took the highly unusual step of sending a mass e-mail (or, as he called it, “a personal note”) to his party’s grass-roots members.

3. To affect as with blows; to strike repeatedly; to strive with or contend against.

   to buffet the billows

   • William Broome (1689-1745)

     The sudden hurricane in thunder roars, / Buffets the bark, and whirls it from the shores.

   • 1830, Joseph Plumb Martin, A Narrative of Some of the Adventures, Dangers and Sufferings of a Revolutionary Soldier, Ch. I:

     […] I buffetted heat and mosquetoes, and got the hay all up […]

   • 1887, William Black, Sabina Zembra, Ch. XLVI:

     You are lucky fellows who can live in a dreamland of your own, instead of being buffeted about the world.

4. To deaden the sound of (bells) by muffling the clapper.

Translations

Etymology 3

From Old French, of unknown origin.

Noun

buffet ‎(plural buffets)

1. A low stool; a hassock.

Finnish

Etymology

Borrowing from French buffet.

Noun

buffet

1. buffet

Declension

Usage notes

The endings of the alternative, somewhat Finnicized forms buffetti and especially bufetti better fit the structure of Finnish.

Most Finns don't know (and this dictionary didn't until January 2016) that the letter t in the form "buffet" is silent (and that the letter u is pronounced [y]) and are not sure how to decline this form because Finnish nouns don't end in -t in the singular. They therefore consciously or unconsciously change the ending in the nominative to the more Finnish ending -tti in speaking, despite the fact that the French pronunciation (with [y] and silent t) is the only one listed in the Kielitoimiston sanakirja.

Most Finns have trouble pronouncing the sound [b] and many the sound [f], so the completely Finnicized form puhvetti is in fact widespread in speech even though the spelling "buffetti" is the most common.

French

Etymology

Old French, of uncertain origin.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /byfɛ/

Noun

buffet m ‎(plural buffets)

1. sideboard, dresser
2. (food) buffet

Italian

Etymology

Borrowing from French buffet.

Noun

buffet m ‎(invariable)

1. sideboard (furniture)
2. buffet, refreshment bar

Norwegian

Alternative forms

• buffé

Etymology

Borrowing from French buffet.

Noun

buffet ‎(m)

1. sideboard; dining room furniture containing table linen and services
2. buffet, refreshment bar

Inflection

Portuguese

Alternative forms

• bifê
• bufê

Etymology

Borrowing from French buffet.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bi.ˈfe/

Noun

buffet m (plural buffets)

1. buffet (food laid out so diners may serve themselves)

Spanish

Etymology

Borrowing from French buffet.

Noun

buffet m ‎(plural buffets)

1. buffet