Buffet /(bo͝of*fā")/

1. A cupboard or set of shelves, either movable or fixed at one side of a room, for the display of plate, china, etc., a sideboard.

   Not when a gilt buffet's reflected pride Turns you from sound philosophy aside.

2. A counter for food or refreshments.
3. A restaurant containing such a counter, as at a railroad station, or place of public gathering.
4. A meal set out on a buffet[2], arranged so that guests may serve themselves and choose those items that they desire; as, a buffet dinner. Diners usually take a plate provided and move in a line past the items on the buffet[2], placing those items they desire on the plate, to be eaten at some convenient place.

1. A blow with the hand; a slap on the face; a cuff.

   When on his cheek a buffet fell.

2. A blow from any source, or that which affects like a blow, as the violence of winds or waves; a stroke; an adverse action; an affliction; a trial; adversity.

   Those planks of tough and hardy oak that used for yeas to brave the buffets of the Bay of Biscay.

   Fortune's buffets and rewards.

3. A small stool; a stool for a buffet or counter.

   Go fetch us a light buffet.

imp. & p. p. Buffeted; p. pr. & vb. n. Buffeting

1. To strike with the hand or fist; to box; to beat; to cuff; to slap.

   They spit in his face and buffeted him.

2. To affect as with blows; to strike repeatedly; to strive with or contend against; as, to buffet the billows.

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

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

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

1. To exercise or play at boxing; to strike; to smite; to strive; to contend.

   If I might buffet for my love, or bound my horse for her favors, I could lay on like a butcher.

2. To make one's way by blows or struggling.

   Strove to buffet to land in vain.