different between buffer vs screen

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 scren, screne (“windscreen, firescreen”), from Anglo-Norman escren (“firescreen, the tester of a bed”), Old French escren, escrein, escran (modern French écran (“screen”)), from Middle Dutch scherm, from Old Dutch *skirm, from Proto-West Germanic *skirmi, from Proto-Germanic *skirmiz (“fur, shelter, covering, screen”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to cut, divide”). Cognate with Dutch scherm (“screen”), German Schirm (“screen”). Doublet of scherm.

An alternative etymology derives Old French escren from Old Dutch *skrank (“barrier”) (compare German Schrank (“cupboard”), Schranke (“fence”).

Pronunciation

• enPR: skr?n, IPA^(key): /sk?i?n/
• Rhymes: -i?n

Noun

screen (plural screens)

1. A physical divider intended to block an area from view, or provide shelter from something dangerous.
2. A material woven from fine wires intended to block animals or large particles from passing while allowing gasses, liquids and finer particles to pass.
   1. (mining, quarrying) A frame supporting a mesh of bars or wires used to classify fragments of stone by size, allowing the passage of fragments whose a diameter is smaller than the distance between the bars or wires.
   2. (baseball) The protective netting which protects the audience from flying objects

   3. (printing) A stencil upon a framed mesh through which paint is forced onto printed-on material; the frame with the mesh itself.
3. (by analogy) Searching through a sample for a target; an act of screening
   1. (genetics) A technique used to identify genes so as to study gene functions.
4. Various forms or formats of information display
   1. The viewing surface or area of a movie, or moving picture or slide presentation.
   2. The informational viewing area of electronic devices, where output is displayed.
      • 1977, Sex Pistols, Spunk, “Problems” (song):

   3. One of the individual regions of a video game, etc. divided into separate screens.
      • 1988, Marcus Berkmann, Sophistry (video game review) in Your Sinclair issue 30, June 1988

      • 1989, Compute (volume 11, page 51)

   4. (computing) The visualised data or imagery displayed on a computer screen.

5. Definitions related to standing in the path of an opposing player
   1. (American football) Short for screen pass.
   2. (basketball) An offensive tactic in which a player stands so as to block a defender from reaching a teammate.

      Synonym: pick

6. (cricket) An erection of white canvas or wood placed on the boundary opposite a batsman to make the ball more easily visible.
7. (nautical) A collection of less-valuable vessels that travel with a more valuable one for the latter's protection.
8. (architecture) A dwarf wall or partition carried up to a certain height for separation and protection, as in a church, to separate the aisle from the choir, etc.
9. (Scotland, archaic) A large scarf.

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Related terms

Translations

References

Verb

screen (third-person singular simple present screens, present participle screening, simple past and past participle screened)

1. To filter by passing through a screen.

   Mary screened the beans to remove the clumps of gravel.

2. To shelter or conceal.
3. To remove information, or censor intellectual material from viewing.

   The news report was screened because it accused the politician of wrongdoing.

4. (film, television) To present publicly (on the screen).

   The news report will be screened at 11:00 tonight.

5. To fit with a screen.

   We need to screen this porch. These bugs are driving me crazy.

6. (medicine) To examine patients or treat a sample in order to detect a chemical or a disease, or to assess susceptibility to a disease.
7. (molecular biology) To search chemical libraries by means of a computational technique in order to identify chemical compounds which would potentially bind to a given biological target such as a protein.
8. (basketball) To stand so as to block a defender from reaching a teammate.

   Synonym: pick

9. To determine the source or subject matter of a call before deciding whether to answer the phone.
   • 1987 April 7, Associated Press (story title as printed in New York Times[1])

     A Phone to Screen Calls

Derived terms

Translations

Further reading

• screen in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• screen in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• screen on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• censer, scener, scerne, secern