different between buffer vs wall

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

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /w??l/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /w?l/
• (cot–caught merger) IPA^(key): /w?l/
• Rhymes: -??l

Etymology 1

From Middle English wall, from Old English weall (“wall, dike, earthwork, rampart, dam, rocky shore, cliff”), from Proto-Germanic *wallaz, *wall? (“wall, rampart, entrenchment”), from Latin vallum (“wall, rampart, entrenchment, palisade”), from Proto-Indo-European *wel- (“to turn, wind, roll”). Perhaps conflated with waw (“a wall within a house or dwelling, a room partition”), from Middle English wawe, from Old English w?g, w?h (“an interior wall, divider”), see waw. Cognate with North Frisian wal (“wall”), Saterland Frisian Waal (“wall, rampart, mound”), Dutch wal (“wall, rampart, embankment”), German Wall (“rampart, mound, embankment”), Swedish vall (“mound, wall, bank”). More at wallow, walk.

Noun

wall (plural walls)

1. A rampart of earth, stones etc. built up for defensive purposes.
2. A structure built for defense surrounding a city, castle etc.
3. Each of the substantial structures acting either as the exterior of or divisions within a structure.
4. A point of desperation.
5. A point of defeat or extinction.
6. An impediment to free movement.

7. A type of butterfly (Lasiommata megera).
8. (often in combination) A barrier.

9. A barrier to vision.
10. Something with the apparent solidity and dimensions of a building wall.

11. (anatomy, zoology, botany) A divisive or containing structure in an organ or cavity.
12. (auction) A fictional bidder used to increase the price at an auction.

    Synonym: chandelier

13. (US, slang, medicine) A doctor who tries to admit as few patients as possible.

    Antonym: sieve

14. (soccer) A line of defenders set up between an opposing free-kick taker and the goal.
15. (Internet) A personal notice board listing messages of interest to a particular user.

Synonyms

• (rampart): rampart
• (fictional bidder at an auction): chandelier
• (personal notice board): profile

Meronyms

• (rampart): terreplein (level walkway); parapet, crenellation (minor secondary wall protecting the terreplein); banquette (area elevated above the terreplein for use by defenders)

Translations

Verb

wall (third-person singular simple present walls, present participle walling, simple past and past participle walled)

1. To enclose with, or as if with, a wall or walls.

   He walled the study with books.

Derived terms

• wall in
• wall off
• wall up

Translations

Derived terms

Etymology 2

From Middle English wallen, from Old English weallan (“to bubble, boil”), from Proto-Germanic *wall?n?, *well?n? (“to fount, stream, boil”), from Proto-Indo-European *wel?n-, *wel?m- (“wave”). Cognate with Middle Dutch wallen (“to boil, bubble”), Dutch wellen (“to weld”), German wellen (“to wave, warp”), Danish vælde (“to overwhelm”), Swedish välla (“to gush, weld”). See also well.

Verb

wall (third-person singular simple present walls, present participle walling, simple past and past participle walled)

1. To boil.
2. To well, as water; spring.

Related terms

• well
• overwhelm

Etymology 3

From Middle English walle, from Old English *wealla, *weall (“spring”), from Proto-Germanic *wallô, *wallaz (“well, spring”). See above. Cognate with Old Frisian walla (“spring”), Old English wiell (“well”).

Noun

wall (plural walls)

1. (chiefly dialectal) A spring of water.

Etymology 4

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

Noun

wall (plural walls)

1. (nautical) A kind of knot often used at the end of a rope; a wall knot or wale.

Verb

wall (third-person singular simple present walls, present participle walling, simple past and past participle walled)

1. (transitive, nautical) To make a wall knot on the end of (a rope).

Etymology 5

Interjection

wall

1. (US) Pronunciation spelling of well.
   • 1858, The New Priest in Conception Bay by Robert Lowell [2]

     Wall, they spoke up, 'n' says to her, s'd they, "Why, look a-here, aunty, Wus't his skin, 't was rock?" so s's she, "I guess not." (Well, they spoke up and says to her, said they, "Why look a-here, aunty, was it his skin that was rock [referring to the Apostle Peter]?" So says she, "I guess not.")

   • 1988, Herbert M. Sutherland, Tall Tales of the Devil's Apron, The Overmountain Press ?ISBN, page 97

     Wall, be that as it may, ol' Hosshead was a purty good citizen in his day, an' he shore did make Juneybell toe the mark.

Anagrams

• lawl

German

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -al

Verb

wall

1. singular imperative of wallen
2. (colloquial) first-person singular present of wallen

Middle English

Noun

wall

1. Alternative form of wale (“selection, preference”)

Adjective

wall

1. Alternative form of wale

Scots

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /w?l/, /wal/

Noun

wall (plural walls)

1. A well. (clarification of this definition is needed)