different between buffer vs fence

English

Etymology

Agent noun from obsolete verb buff (“make a dull sound when struck”) (mid-16c.), from Old French buffe (“blow”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?b?f?(?)/, [?b?f?(?)]
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?b?f?/
• (General Australian) IPA^(key): /?baf?(?)/, [?bäf?(?)]
• Rhymes: -?f?(r)

Noun

buffer (plural buffers)

1. Someone or something that buffs.
   1. A machine with rotary brushes, passed over a hard floor to clean it.
   2. A machine for polishing shoes and boots.
2. (chemistry) A solution used to stabilize the pH (acidity) of a liquid.
3. (computing) A portion of memory set aside to store data, often before it is sent to an external device or as it is received from an external device.
4. (mechanical) Anything used to maintain slack or isolate different objects.
5. (telecommunications) A routine or storage medium used to compensate for a difference in rate of flow of data, or time of occurrence of events, when transferring data from one device to another.
6. (rail transport) A device on trains and carriages designed to cushion the impact between them.
   • 1885, W. S. Gilbert, The Mikado, Act II, in The Mikado, and Other Plays, New York: Modern Library, 1917, p. 42, [1]

     The idiot who, in railway carriages, / Scribbles on window panes, / We only suffer / To ride on a buffer / In Parliamentary trains.

   • 1953, C. S. Lewis, The Silver Chair, Collins, 1998, Chapter 14,

     Then, with a shock like a thousand goods trains crashing into a thousand pairs of buffers, the lips of rock closed.

7. (rail transport) The metal barrier to help prevent trains from running off the end of the track.
8. An isolating circuit, often an amplifier, used to minimize the influence of a driven circuit on the driving circuit.
9. (politics, international relations) A buffer zone (such as a demilitarized zone) or a buffer state.
10. (colloquial) A good-humoured, slow-witted fellow, usually an elderly man.
    • 1955, C. S. Lewis, The Magician's Nephew, Collins, 1998, Chapter 1,

      I can’t expect two youngsters like you to find it much fun talking to an old buffer like me.

11. (figuratively) A gap that isolates or separates two things.
12. (Britain, nautical, slang) The chief bosun's mate.
    • 2001, Mark Higgitt, Through Fire and Water (page 43)

      He decided to run for president of the POs' Mess against the Buffer, Chief Bosun's Mate Mal Crane, but the two had a face-to-face in his cabin one night in Narvik and sorted it out.

    • 2015, Peter Broadbent, A Singapore Fling: An AB's Far-Flung Adventure

      I happen to be on the brow handing my Bosun's Mate duties over to an Ordinary Seaman when the Buffer arrives with an unofficial Side-Party to man the brow with Bosun's Calls at the ready.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

buffer (third-person singular simple present buffers, present participle buffering, simple past and past participle buffered)

1. To use a buffer or buffers; to isolate or minimize the effects of one thing on another.
2. (computing) To store data in memory temporarily.
3. (chemistry) To maintain the acidity of a solution near a chosen value by adding an acid or a base.

Translations

Adjective

buffer

1. comparative form of buff: more buff

Related terms

• bufferize
• buffer lass
• buffer up
• buffer zone

Anagrams

• rebuff

Danish

Etymology

From English buffer.

Noun

buffer c (singular definite bufferen, plural indefinite buffere)

1. (chemistry) buffer

Declension

Synonyms

• puffer

Further reading

• “buffer” in Den Danske Ordbog

Italian

Etymology

Borrowed from English buffer.

Noun

buffer m (invariable)

1. (computing) buffer

   Synonym: memoria tampone

Portuguese

Etymology

Borrowed from English buffer.

Pronunciation

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /?b?.fe?/

Noun

buffer m (plural buffers)

1. (computing) buffer (memory for temporary storage)

Romansch

Alternative forms

• (Rumantsch Grischun, Sursilvan) buffar
• (Sutsilvan) bufar
• (Vallader) boffar

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Verb

buffer

1. (Puter) to blow

Synonyms

• (Rumantsch Grischun, Sursilvan) sufflar
• (Sutsilvan, Surmiran) zuflar
• (Puter) zufler
• (Vallader) sofflar

Spanish

Noun

buffer m (plural buffers)

1. (computing) buffer

Westrobothnian

Verb

buffer

1. Alternative form of bufför

English

Etymology

From Middle English fence, fens, short for defence, defens (“the act of defending”), from Old French defens, defense (see defence).

The sense "enclosure" arises in the mid 15th century.Also from the 15th century is use as a verb in the sense "to enclose with a fence". The generalized sense "to defend, screen, protect" arises ca. 1500. The sense "to fight with swords (rapiers)" is from the 1590s (Shakespeare).

Displaced native Old English edor.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /f?ns/, [f?ns], [f?nts]
• Rhymes: -?ns

Noun

fence (countable and uncountable, plural fences)

1. A thin artificial barrier that separates two pieces of land or a house perimeter.
2. Someone who hides or buys and sells stolen goods, a criminal middleman for transactions of stolen goods.
3. (by extension) The place whence such a middleman operates.
4. Skill in oral debate.
5. (obsolete, uncountable) The art or practice of fencing.
6. A guard or guide on machinery.
7. (figuratively) A barrier, for example an emotional barrier.
8. (computing, programming) A memory barrier.

Hyponyms

• catch fence
• electric fence
• picket fence

Derived terms

Descendants

• ? Pennsylvania German: Fens

Translations

See also

• wire netting
• wire gauze

Verb

fence (third-person singular simple present fences, present participle fencing, simple past and past participle fenced)

1. (transitive) To enclose, contain or separate by building fence.
2. (transitive) To defend or guard.
3. (transitive) To engage in the selling or buying of stolen goods.

   • The Bat—they called him the Bat. […]. He'd never been in stir, the bulls had never mugged him, he didn't run with a mob, he played a lone hand, and fenced his stuff so that even the fence couldn't swear he knew his face.

4. (intransitive, sports) To engage in the sport of fencing.
5. (intransitive, equestrianism) To jump over a fence.
6. (intransitive) To conceal the truth by giving equivocal answers; to hedge; to be evasive.
   • 1981, A. D. Hope, "His Coy Mistress to Mr. Marvell," A Book of Answers:

     A lady, sir, as you will find, / Keeps counsel, or she speaks her mind, / Means what she says and scorns to fence / And palter with feigned innocence.

Synonyms

• (to sell or buy stolen goods): pawn

Derived terms

• ring-fence, ringfence

Translations

Czech

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?f?nt?s?]
• Rhymes: -?nts?
• Hyphenation: fen?ce

Noun

fence

1. dative singular of fenka
2. locative singular of fenka