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Buffer   Listen
noun
Buffer  n.  
1.
(Mech.)
(a)
An elastic apparatus or fender, for deadening the jar caused by the collision of bodies; as, a buffer at the end of a railroad car.
(b)
A pad or cushion forming the end of a fender, which receives the blow; sometimes called buffing apparatus.
2.
One who polishes with a buff.
3.
A wheel for buffing; a buff.
4.
A good-humored, slow-witted fellow; usually said of an elderly man. (Colloq.)
5.
(Chem.) A substance or mixture of substances which can absorb or neutralize a certain quantity of acid or base and thus keep the degree of acidity or alkalinity of a solution (as measured by pH) relatively stable. Sometimes the term is used in a medical context to mean antacid.
6.
(Computers) A data storage device or portion of memory used to temporarily store input or output data until the receiving device is ready to process it.
7.
Any object or person that shields another object or person from harm, shock, or annoyance; as, the President's staff is his buffer from constant interruptions of his work.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Buffer" Quotes from Famous Books



... this, Brydges! The stage driver's told one of my men, already! Every bar-room buffer in the country side will know ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut

... working for yours only. A first-rate traveller's trick! Ha! ha! we are the diplomatists of commerce. Famous! As for your prospectus, I'll take charge of that. I've got a friend—early childhood—Andoche Finot, son of the hat-maker in the Rue du Coq, the old buffer who launched me into travelling on hats. Andoche, who has a great deal of wit,—he got it all out of the heads tiled by his father,—he is in literature; he does the minor theatres in the 'Courrier des Spectacles.' His father, ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac

... swung in a strong steel collar and carrying at its end three or more air-compressing pumps set radially, with the piston-rods thrust outwards by a strong spring on each, but with the ends perfectly free from any attachment, yet fitted with a buffer or wheel. As the pendulum moves it throws one or more of these piston-rod ends into contact with the inner surface of the ring, driving it into the compressing pump. At the top of the pendulum there is a double or universal pipe-joint through which the air under pressure is driven to the reservoir, ...
— Twentieth Century Inventions - A Forecast • George Sutherland

... authorities and benches of magistrates, quite independent of the Home Office, are held responsible for mistakes in police action or irregularities in local justice. The consequence is that there is a strong buffer to protect the character and power of the ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.

... buffer, so you are popular," said he to him. "Your phiz is sold on the heads of pipes and on liqueur bottles and every drunkard in Alca spits out your name as he rolls in the gutter. . . . Chatillon, the hero of the Penguins! Chatillon, defender of the Penguin ...
— Penguin Island • Anatole France

... showed his absorbing interest in literary studies by neglecting the society of Mr. Verdant Green and immersing himself in the perusal of one of those vivid accounts of "a rattling set-to between Nobby Buffer and Hammer Sykes" which make "Bell's Life" the favourite ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books - Vol. II: Fiction • Arthur Mee, J. A. Hammerton, Eds.

... aft, on aluminium platforms, two Daimler motor engines of 16-horse power, working aluminium propellers of four blades at the rate of 1,000 revolutions a minute. Finally, firmly attached to the inner framework by rods of aluminium, were two cars of the same metal, furnished with buffer springs to break the force of a fall. The trial trip was not made till the summer following—June, 1900—and, in the meanwhile, experiments had gone forward with another mode of flight, terminating, unhappily, in the death of one of the most expert ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon

... he'll come on all right," answered the batteryman, with easy assurance. "Maybe he has gone round by the road. Even if he hasn't, I've seen him make that in one jump many a time. He's an active old buffer ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King

... leads into the Bay of Topla, and the steamer heads direct for Castelnuovo, leaving on the left the Sutorina, the lower part of the Canali valley, a portion of the territory of the Republic of Ragusa ceded to Turkey in 1699 to form a buffer state between herself and Venice. The Slav name of Castelnuovo is Erzegnovi, and it was founded in 1373 by the Bosniak king Tvarko I., Kotromanovic. In 1483 it was enlarged and raised to the position of principal ...
— The Shores of the Adriatic - The Austrian Side, The Kuestenlande, Istria, and Dalmatia • F. Hamilton Jackson

... from the panicky way he's actin', he don't shove me ahead of him for a buffer as we goes in. But he has just enough courage left to let ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford

... alliances, was to become a fundamental principle of the new international order. If the United States was to go into a league of nations, every member of the league must stand on its own footing. We were not to be made a buffer between alliances ...
— From Isolation to Leadership, Revised - A Review of American Foreign Policy • John Holladay Latane

... circular note addressed to Russia, Prussia, and Austria, that it had always been England's desire that an independent Poland, possessing a dynasty of its own, should be established, which, separating Austria, Russia, and Prussia, should act as a buffer State between them; that, failing its creation, the Poles should be reconciled to being dominated by foreigners, by just and liberal treatment which alone would make them satisfied. His note, which is most remarkable for its far-sightedness, ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... good; a package of emery boards, an orange-wood stick, a flexible nail file, a small bottle of peroxide of hydrogen for bleaching, a bit of pumice stone, a cake of polishing powder, a chamois covered "buffer" and a box of ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... the way to bed at four o'clock in the morning—problems not easily solved by a company of gesticulating freebooters who are for ever making raids, first into stage-land, then into real life, and lifting incidents across the border into that buffer-state where they lead a joyous life between ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones

... an acquisition, and so long as he reigned at the Wells, people made the best they could of him, though it was painfully apparent to the livery-stable keepers, and others, who had the best interest of the place at heart, that such a red-faced, gloveless, drab-breeched, mahogany-booted buffer, who would throw off at the right time, and who resolutely set his great stubbly-cheeked face against all show meets and social intercourse in the field, was not exactly the man for a civilized place. Whether time might have enlightened Mr. Slocdolager as to the ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... for the careless and unmethodical; a keen eye for hops wasted and trodden into the ground, or for poles of undersized hops, unwelcome to the pickers and hidden beneath those from which the hops had been picked. He acted as buffer between capital and labour, smoothing troubles over, telling me of the pickers' difficulties, and explaining my side to the pickers when the quality was poor and prices discouraging, so that the work went with a swing and with happy faces ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory

... novelist's license, some points in all three Gatehouses have been utilized for effect. So we can imagine the three friends in succession going up the "postern stair;" and, further on in the story, we can picture that mysterious "single buffer, Dick Datchery, living on his means," as a lodger in the "venerable architectural and inconvenient" official dwelling of Mr. Tope, minutely described in the eighteenth chapter of Edwin Drood, as "communicating ...
— A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land • William R. Hughes

... demanded a taxi. "I must have it, Julie," he said. "I want to drive up, and have the old buffer in gold braid open the door for me. ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable

... meant to fashion some sort of buffer, that would break the fall should the couple above find themselves compelled to jump; and it was a splendid scheme to be formed on the spur of that dreadful moment, one that Cuthbert never could ...
— Canoe Mates in Canada - Three Boys Afloat on the Saskatchewan • St. George Rathborne

... on, "do you think you're the only one that's got to work? Suppose you were shut up all day in a factory? Have you ever been to a factory? Do you know the life of a metal-buffer girl at Sheffield, standing in front of her wheel, from morning till night, and work, ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne

... him round and round and round again. For a girl, she "guided" remarkably well; nevertheless, a series of collisions, varying in intensity, marked the path of the pair upon the rather crowded platform. In such emergencies Miss Boke proved herself deft in swinging William to act as a buffer, and he several times found himself heavily stricken from the rear; anon his face would be pressed suffocatingly into Miss Boke's hair, without the slightest wish on his part for such intimacy. He had a helpless feeling, ...
— Seventeen - A Tale Of Youth And Summer Time And The Baxter Family Especially William • Booth Tarkington

... continue to live with him on their present terms? She had no intention to make another effort to alter them; but to remain as they were would be intolerable, and Mrs. Tanberry could not stay forever, to act as a buffer between her and her father. Peering out into the dismal night, she found her own future as black, and it seemed no wonder that the Sisters loved the convent life; that the pale nuns forsook the world wherein there was so much useless unkindness; where women were petty and jealous, ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington

... quite as satisfactory as that obtained by the present system, while disappointed candidates would curse Fortune, who has a broader back than the Prime Minister. No doubt examinations were introduced on the same sort of principle, to act as a buffer between the train of candidates and the engine of Government. That the examination often comes after instead of before the appointment is a necessary modification, without which no room would be left for the play of those kindly feelings for kith and kin which we bitterly nickname nepotism. Under ...
— Behind the Bungalow • EHA

... Judge's anger at so trifling an error very ridiculous and insulting, and shall shoot him the first time he comes to town. An Independent Press is not to be muzzled by any absurd old buffer with a crooked nose, and a sister who is considerably more mother than wife. Not as long as we have our usual success in thinning out the judiciary with buck shot.—Lone ...
— The Fiend's Delight • Dod Grile

... and in these days of pugilists who resemble matinee idols he had the appearance of an anachronism. He was a stocky man with a round, solid head, small eyes, an undershot jaw, and a nose which ill-treatment had reduced to a mere scenario. A narrow strip of forehead acted as a kind of buffer-state, separating his front hair from his eyebrows, and he bore beyond hope of concealment the badge of his late employment, the cauliflower ear. Yet was he a man of worth and a good citizen, and Ann had liked him from their first meeting. As for Jerry, he worshipped Ann and would ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

... BUFFER. One that steals and kills horses and dogs for their skins; also an inn-keeper: in Ireland it signifies ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.

... Countess von Rosen, wife or widow of a cloudy count, no longer in her second youth, and already bereft of some of her attractions, who unequivocally occupies the station of the Baron's mistress. I had thought, at first, that she was but a hired accomplice, a mere blind or buffer for the more important sinner. A few hours' acquaintance with Madame von Rosen for ever dispelled the illusion. She is one rather to make than to prevent a scandal, and she values none of those bribes—money, honours, or employment—with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Slavs) are the natural adversaries of Germany, of her Drang nach Osten; to liberate and strengthen these smaller nations is the only real check upon Prussia. Free Poland, Bohemia and Serbo-Croatia would be so-called buffer states, their organisation would facilitate and promote the formation of a Magyar state, of Greater Rumania, of Bulgaria, Greece and the rest of the smaller nations. If this horrible war, with its countless victims, has any meaning, it can only be found in the ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek

... disaffection, and misery—that is what you will find in the open villages. Now, in Islip you have an omnipotent squire, and that is an abomination in theory, a mediaeval monster, a blot on modern civilization; but practically the poor monster is a softener of poverty, an incarnate buffer between the poor and tyranny, ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade

... the same when they first come. Presently you will grow accustomed to its invigorating tone, and quiet down. It is caused by the dry air. We are a long way from the Atlantic, and these mighty mountains to the west act as a buffer to the moisture-laden air from ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen

... in India it was evident that downright antagonism had existed between Hugo Tancred and his little son. Tony had weighed his father and found him wanting; and it was clear that he had tried to insert his small personality as a buffer between his ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker

... interpose Persia as a buffer between Russia and the Afghans.... I do not believe either in the strength or in the good faith of Persia," said Lord Ripon. "...I am afraid that the India Office have by no means got rid of the notions which ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn

... great buffer like me being 'kind' to you. It's you and Lenox who are a long sight too kind to me. You're spoiling me between you. Why didn't you go to the sports with him ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver

... peace. Dundas, the English secretary for the colonies, expressed the policy, when he declared, in 1792, that the object was to interpose an Indian barrier between Canada and the United States; and in pursuance of this policy of preserving the Northwest as an Indian buffer State, the Canadian authorities supported the Indians in their resistance to American settlement beyond the Ohio. The conception of the Northwest as an Indian reserve strikingly exhibits England's inability to foresee the future of the region, and to measure the ...
— The Frontier in American History • Frederick Jackson Turner

... fellow, he accepted it as a matter of course. His career was planned for him: he "took orders," married the young woman his folks selected, and slipped easily into his proper niche—his adipose serving as a buffer for his feelings. In his intellect there was no flash, and his insight into the heart of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... in 1974 divided the island into two de facto autonomous areas, a Greek Cypriot area controlled by the internationally recognized Cypriot Government and a Turkish Cypriot area, separated by a UN buffer zone; March 2003 reunification talks failed, but Turkish Cypriots later opened their borders to temporary ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... the back of the Bench? TIM's gentle nature shivered with apprehension; thing to do was to get a good plump gentleman set between the two, so that in case hostilities broke out his body might be used as buffer. Thought of ELTON first. Besides a professional desire to find occupation for Members of the Bar, ELTON's figure seemed made on purpose for the peaceful errand TIM had in mind. Broached subject. ELTON said, always happy to oblige; but was, in fact, just now retiring from Parliamentary life; didn't ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, VOL. 100. Feb. 28, 1891 • Various

... this for the Colonel; me and the old man don't get on well. The old buffer is always down on me whenever I takes a drop, but I'm going to make him a present of a 'oss this night, that I am." He went off in the darkness, towing the present by ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch

... similar advantage to Russia in Northern Persia. Nothing but a friendly understanding between England and Russia, which should clearly define the respective spheres of influence, will save the integrity of Persia. That country should remain an independent buffer state between Russia and India. But to bring about this result it is more than necessary that we should support Persia on our side, as much as Russia does on hers, or the balance is bound to go in ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... in a high state of elasticity. There were also 24,644 passenger-carriages, 9128 vans and breaks attached to passenger-trains, and 329,163 trucks, waggons, and other vehicles appropriated to merchandise. Buckled together, buffer to buffer, the locomotives and tenders would extend from London to Peterborough; while the carrying vehicles, joined together, would form two trains occupying a double line of railway extending from London ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles

... is protected from injury by moderate degrees of violence applied to the head, by the dense and mobile scalp, the dome-like shape of the skull, the elasticity of its outer table and the buffer-like sutural membrane between the numerous bones of which it is composed, and the various internal osseous projections with the membranes attached to them, all of which tend to diminish vibrations and to disperse forces so that they expend themselves ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles

... birth-formula (of which hereafter) renders further secrecy impossible, and for some months before the event the family live in retirement, seeing very little company. When the offence is over and done with, it is condoned by the common want of logic; for this merciful provision of nature, this buffer against collisions, this friction which upsets our calculations but without which existence would be intolerable, this crowning glory of human invention whereby we can be blind and see at one and the same moment, this ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler

... one person and conciliating another, he learns to be cautious and reserved and diplomatic, to drop hints and suggestions, to become in a word the first District Visitor of his parish. He flies to his wife for protection, and finds in her the most effective buffer against parochial collisions. Greek meets Greek when the vicar's wife meets the District Visitor. But the vicar himself sinks into a parochial nobody, a being as sacred and as powerless as the Lama ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green

... struck by a heavy sea. In a moment she righted and shot ahead, and, turning, presented her port side to the enemy. Instant examination of the armour on her other side showed that the two banks of springs were uninjured, and that not an air-buffer had exploded or failed to spring back to ...
— The Great War Syndicate • Frank Stockton

... promptly he ignored it, yet after all there may be more wisdom in that head of his than I suspected. Look you how he has made a buffer of me. He gives no commands to the men himself, but merely orders me to pass along the word for this or that. He appears determined to have his own way, and yet not to bring about a personal conflict between himself and ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr

... Federals and the rich Texan grain-fields, from whence he fondly hoped an inexhaustible supply of flour[787] for the Confederates was to come. In short, the great and wonderful expanse that had been given to the Indian for a perpetual home was a mere buffer. ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel

... would take a volume in itself. Briefly, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Montenegro were represented. Montenegro, with characteristic laisser faire, never appointed a commissary at all, and the work all fell on me. Fortunately, in fact, for I was the buffer state between Serbia and Bulgaria, who were at daggers-drawn. At the necessary meetings the Serb Commissioner talked German and Serb into one of my ears, while the Bulgar shouted French and Bulgar into the other, and the English manager at ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith

... accompany me was provided with a rusty old musket with a very long barrel. I examined this weapon with much curiosity. China is our neighbour in Eastern Asia, and is, it is often stated, an ideal power to be intrusted with the government of the buffer state called for by French aggression in Siam. In China, it is alleged, we have a prospective ally in Asia, and it is preferable that England should suffer all reasonable indignities and humilities ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison

... men went out and she was left alone. A flagman, hat in hand, passed through the car. The shock of the engine coupler striking the buffer hardly disturbed her reverie; for her the ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman

... Jack only feared lest some strip of rotten wood might give way under their combined weight, and allow them to plunge downward. A solid phalanx of the sturdy football players had formed directly beneath, and they seemed determined that if anything of this sort took place they would serve as a buffer, so that those who fell through might not be ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton

... this book to all who would know what the "concert of European powers" means to a struggling kingdom and people used as a "buffer state" between the unspeakable Turk and civilized "Westerns." The historical chapters of the work are a revelation of the intricacies of "the disgraceful deals of the great powers whose victim the kingdom of Greece has been." The story is simply told with great candor and quiet ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose

... use of the royal motor-cars. The royal train is put together by selecting those required from fifteen carriages which are always ready for an imperial journey. If the journey is short, a saloon carriage and refreshment car are deemed sufficient; in case of a long journey the train consists of a buffer carriage in addition, with two saloon cars for the suite and two wagons for the luggage. The train is always accompanied by a high official of the railway, who, with mechanics and spare guard, is in direct telephonic communication with the engine-driver and guard. The carriages are coloured alike, ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw

... empire. These Continental wars, which have ever since influenced British policy, seem to have originated (aside from the important matter of self-interest) in a double motive: to prevent any one nation from gaining overwhelming superiority by force of arms, and to save the smaller "buffer" states from being absorbed by their powerful neighbors. Thus the War of the Spanish Succession (1711) prevented the union of the French and Spanish monarchies, and preserved the smaller states of Holland and Germany. As Addison then wrote, ...
— Outlines of English and American Literature • William J. Long

... No dimber damber, angler, dancer, Prig of cackler, prig of prancer; No swigman, swaddler, clapperdudgeon; Cadge-gloak, curtal, or curmudgeon; No whip-jack, palliard, patrico; No jarkman, be he high or low; No dummerar, or romany; No member of "the Family;" No ballad-basket, bouncing buffer, Nor any other, will I suffer; But stall-off now and for ever, All outliers whatsoever: And as I keep to the foregone, So ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... to remain in Boston he might have held his charge against the ravages of time, secreted a curate, taken on a becoming buffer of adipose, and glided off by imperceptible degrees on to the ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard

... measures, especially as the Republicans had failed to carry a majority of the congressional districts. Thus the blunders of Douglas and Chase in 1854 had started the dogs of sectional warfare, and now a solid North confronted a solid South, with only two or three undecided buffer States, like ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd

... he had been a self-constituted buffer between Mr. Clarke and the men in the furnace-room, and he wondered anxiously ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice

... necessary to mention those which form permanent landmarks in the progressive conformation of the Austrian monarchy. Such was the second partition of Poland (January 23, 1793), which eliminated the "buffer state" on which Austrian statesmanship had hitherto laid such importance, and brought the Austrian and Russian frontiers into contact. Such, too, was the treaty of Campo Formio (October 17, 1797) which ended the first revolutionary war. By this treaty the loss of the Belgian ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various

... herself with a buffer state and ally in Southern Europe, meaning Turkey, so she has cleverly succeeded in creating a similar condition in the extreme north of Europe. Sweden and Norway, at no time friendly to the Moscovite—you need ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves

... "Buffer? No, but a guardian angel if such a creature can shield me from rebuffs," said Daniel, even more brusquely than he had ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... buffer," declared Lane grumpily as we walked on. "He is too fussy and by-your-leave-please for me. Made me get out all my books yesterday, as if ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson

... we will, Jack!" announced Bobolink, triumphantly; "for I can see the big timber he said was acting as a buffer above him. Hey! we've got to be extra careful now, because one end of that beam is balanced ever so delicately, and if it gets shoved off ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Snowbound - A Tour on Skates and Iceboats • George A. Warren

... eastern part of the colony. They were in no danger from Indian raids, and they had small pity for their brethren on the western frontier. Between them and the encroaching Indians lay a population, mostly German, that acted like a buffer state to them; and notwithstanding that every post brought in urgent appeals for help, they passed the time in wrangling with the Governor, in drawing up bills professing to be framed to meet the emergency, but each one of them containing the clause through which the Governor ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green

... completely by the planters; while the farmers of less estate, weaned from tobacco by its fall in price, tended to move west and south to new areas on the mainland, where they dwelt in self-sufficing democratic neighborhoods, and formed incidentally a buffer between the plantations on the seaboard and the Indians ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips

... were thus by their position the barrier tribes of the South, who had to stand the brunt of our advance, and who acted as a buffer between us and the French and Spaniards of the Gulf and the lower Mississippi. Their fate once decided, that of the Chickasaws and ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt

... undergo ossification, in which condition they are hard and unyielding. The plantar cushion is a wedge-shaped mass of tough, elastic, fibro-fatty tissue filling all the space between the lateral cartilages, forming the fleshy heels and the fleshy frog, and serving as a buffer to disperse shock when the foot is set to the ground. It extends forward underneath the navicular bone and perforans tendon, and protects these structures from injurious pressure from below. Instantaneous photographs show that at speed the horse sets the heels to the ground before other parts of ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... socialist Russia reflects the power of a new idea over the ancient form. The Allied expeditions into Russia met with hostility instead of welcome. The counter-revolutionary forces were overwhelmed by the red army. The buffer states made peace. The Allied soldiers mutinied when called upon to take part in a war against the forces of revolutionary Russia. "Holy Russia" became holy Russia indeed—recognized and respected by the proletarian ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing

... struck the ground with a "dull thud," but for an unexpected buffer in the shape of one of his brother warriors, who happened to be standing directly under. As a consequence, the sprawling figure came down on the head and shoulders of the astounded Comanche, who collapsed ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis

... man of large ideas. In the rapid growth of California he saw a threat to Mexico and proposed to that government, as a "buffer" state between the two republics, to form a French colony in the Mexican State of Sonora. Sonora is that part of Mexico which directly joins on the south with our State of Arizona. The President of Mexico gave ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis

... contrary, seemed rather to welcome the companionship of the tribe, as if looking to it for some protection against the strange pursuing peril. His sleepless sagacity perceiving the value of this great escort as a buffer against the contact of less kindly hordes, Grom gave strict orders that none of these beasts should be molested. And the Cave Folk, not without apprehension, found themselves traveling in the vanguard of an army of tall, ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts

... all knows, when a worm will turn, and though I'm not a worm, ma'am, no more am I a coward, an' a red coat don't cover more flesh than a black; an' I'm an ould man, Miss Priscilla, to be called a buffer!" ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown

... such as now existed in their common boundary. The collisions incident to intercourse between red and white men were easily transferred from side to side of such a conventional line, causing continual disputes. The advantages of a buffer state, to use the modern term, would be secured by the proposed arrangement. Writing to the prime minister, the Earl of Liverpool, he said, "The question is one of expediency; and not of principle, as the American commissioners have endeavored to make it. It does ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... they seemed to feel they wuz wastin' their tellents 'Thout some un to kick, 't warn't more 'n proper, you know, Each should funnish his part; an' sence they found the toe, An' we wuzn't cherubs—wal, we found the buffer, For fear thet the Compromise System ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various

... have some success, but before long it became clear that the current was too strong and that the bitterness of faction was to prevail. I am so constituted that factious thought and effort dishearten and disgust me. At many periods of my life I have acted as a "buffer'' between conflicting cliques and factions, generally to some purpose; now it was otherwise. But, as Kipling says, "that ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White

... street or on a railway; but if he prefers another word (he does not suggest one, by the way) for the traffic on Broadway or on the New York Central, I shall not esteem him one whit the less.[S] Even when he tells me that "bumper" is the English term for the American "buffer" (on a railway carriage) I do not feel my blood boil. A very slight elevation of the eyebrows expresses all the emotion of which I am conscious. So long as he does not insist on my saying a "bumper state" when I mean a ...
— America To-day, Observations and Reflections • William Archer

... and runs forward upon these at once into firing position. The two elevated horns which are seen standing up at the rear part of the slide above the roller frame are designed to receive the thump of the two short buffer-blocks—seen at the rear part of each carriage cheek—in the event of the recoil not being wholly expended in raising the weight of gun and carriage, etc., along the curved racers of the slide. These buffer-blocks bear against plugs of vulcanized india-rubber ...
— Scientific American, Vol.22, No. 1, January 1, 1870 • Various

... the pile-head at the rate of 80 a minute, and as the pile sank, the hammer followed it down with never relaxing activity until it was driven home to the required depth. One of the most ingenious contrivances employed in the driver, which was also adopted in the hammer, was the use of steam as a buffer in the upper part of the cylinder, which had the effect of a recoil spring, and greatly enhanced the force of ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles

... eventual disruption of the smaller social and political unities,[4] the knightly manors with the privileges attached to the knightly class generally. The knighthood, or lower nobility, had acted as a sort of buffer between the princes of the empire and the Imperial power, to which they often looked for protection against their immediate overlord or their powerful neighbour—the prince. The Imperial power, in consequence, found the ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax

... poor old buffer!" her husband answered complacently, his temper restored. "By the way, I've brought in the last number of Dickens. Shall I read it ...
— The Beth Book - Being a Study of the Life of Elizabeth Caldwell Maclure, a Woman of Genius • Sarah Grand

... protocols, dispatches, and other public documents the formal language of legations, so cold, dry, and elaborated, those expressions purposely attenuated and smoothed down, those long phrases apparently spun out mechanically and always after the same pattern, a sort of soft wadding or international buffer interposed between contestants to lessen the shocks of collision. The reciprocal irritations between States are already too great; there are ever too many unavoidable and regrettable encounters, too many causes of conflict, the consequences of which are too serious; it is unnecessary ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... has been a renewal of Turkey's vigor and prestige; then again its situation has been rendered yet more precarious. It has been a buffer between the clashing interests of the great powers. Speaking of Turkey's difficult position in this respect, the London Fortnightly Review, May, 1915, expressed ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer

... that annoyance. Now and then, the fact could not be wholly disguised that some one had refused to meet — or to receive — the Minister; but never an open insult, or any expression of which the Minister had to take notice. Diplomacy served as a buffer in times of irritation, and no diplomat who knew his business fretted at what every diplomat — and none more commonly than the English — had to expect; therefore Henry Adams, though not a diplomat and wholly ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams

... onst they got set we should iver git either of them off alive?" It seemed to strike the little man as a novel idea; for, from that moment, he was ever the first in his feverish endeavors to oppose his small form, buffer-like, between ...
— Bob, Son of Battle • Alfred Ollivant

... belongs absolutely to the States and to the people in the unmistakable terms of the Tenth Amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution or prohibited by it to the States are reserved to the States, respectively, and to the people." This buffer territory of legislation, the domain of needed uniform laws, belongs to the States and through the House of Governors they may enter in and possess their own. The Federal Government and the States are parts of one great organization, each ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... hostilities divided the island into two de facto autonomous areas, a Greek Cypriot area controlled by the internationally recognized Cypriot Government (59% of the island's land area) and a Turkish-Cypriot area (37% of the island), that are separated by a UN buffer zone (4% of the island); there are two UK sovereign base areas mostly within the Greek Cypriot ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... they charged highest for the lowest seats. Wonder whether a lion ever nipped up and helped himself to some fat old buffer in the Stalls when the martyrs turned out a leaner ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, December 19, 1891 • Various

... lathe or other convenient revolving shaft is available, a buffer made of many thicknesses of cotton cloth is very valuable for polishing tools. The addition of a little tripoli greatly facilitates ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes

... forebearance. But tiring of these endless dissensions they lost patience, invaded Greece, burned down Corinth (to "encourage the other Greeks") and sent a Roman governor to Athens to rule this turbulent province. In this way, Macedonia and Greece became buffer states which protected Rome's ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon

... three seconds you arrive at the ground-floor, reading your file of the 'Daily Advertiser;' not an egg broken nor a drop spilled. I saw it done in a New York hotel. The air is compressed under the elevator, and acts as a sort of ethereal buffer." ...
— The Elevator • William D. Howells

... declined to do so. China wants nothing more than the re-establishment of Chinese suzerainty over Tibet, with recognition of the autonomy of the territory immediately under the control of the Lhassa Government; she is agreeable to the British idea of forming an effective buffer territory in so far as it is consistent with equity and justice; she is anxious that her trade interest should be looked after by her trade agents as do the British, a point which is agreeable even to the Tibetans, though apparently ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale

... the old buffer would marry," he muttered, after about half an hour's revery. Alicia and my lady, the stepmother, will go at it hammer and tongs. I hope they won't quarrel in the hunting season, or say unpleasant things to each other at the ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon

... instantly, "I want you to come to my wife's. I'm late, and she won't scold me if you are with me. I shall use you as a buffer." ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... I found that out from the porter, though the blessed old buffer can't speak anything but his French gibberish. 'Madame?' I said, bawling into his stupid old ear. 'Mossoo and Madame Hostin? comprenny?' and he says, 'Ya-ase,' and then bursts out laughing, and looks as proud as a hen that's ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... will, and thus there continually come about those contentions and collisions of which the Holy War is full. And, besides, it is with Mansoul and her neighbour states of Heaven and Hell just as it is with some of our great European empires in this also. There is no neutral zone, no buffer state, no silver streak between Mansoul and her immediate and military neighbours. And thus it is that her statesmen, and her soldiers, and even her very common-soldier sentries must be for ever on the watch; they must never say peace, peace; they must never leave for ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte

... building of the trans-Siberian railroad, and was looking eagerly for a port in the sun, to supplement winter-bound Vladivostok. Great Britain still regarded Russia as the great enemy and, pursuing her policy of placing buffer states between her territories and her enemies, was keenly interested in preventing any encroachment southward which might bring the Russian bear nearer India. France, Russia's ally, possessed IndoChina, which was growing at the expense ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish

... this and other gains really out-balance my losses? Henceforth I should, it was true, be leader and chief; but I should also be the buffer between the Olympians and my little clan. To Edward this had been nothing; he had withstood the impact of Olympus without flinching, like Teneriffe or Atlas unremoved. But was I equal to the task? And was there not rather a danger that for the sake of peace and quietness I might be tempted ...
— The Golden Age • Kenneth Grahame

... ninety feet in favourable circumstances—this shell stands a very good chance of getting broken in tumbling to the earth, so that it has been necessary to surround it with a mass of soft and yielding fibrous material, which breaks its fall, and acts as a buffer to it when it comes in contact with the soil beneath. So many protections has the coco-nut gradually devised for itself by the continuous survival of the best adapted amid numberless and endless spontaneous variations of all ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen

... The five toes of the front foot have each a nail, whilst usually only four toes of the hind foot have nails. A speciality of the elephant is the great circular pad of thick skin overlying fat and fibrous tissue, which forms the sole of the foot and bears the animal's enormous weight. This buffer-like development of the foot existed in some great extinct mammals (the Dinoceras family, of North America), but is altogether different from the support given by a horse's hoof or the paired shoe-like hoofs of great cattle or the three rather elegant hoofed toes ...
— More Science From an Easy Chair • Sir E. Ray (Edwin Ray) Lankester

... shoulder and breathe in my face. I made a movement with my hand and felt somebody's elbow. . . . I opened my eyes and only imagine—a woman. Black eyes, lips red as a prime salmon, nostrils breathing passionately—a bosom like a buffer. . . ." ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... relative accessibility and general strategic advantages. He did this and made all sorts of arrangements tending to co-ordinate the work of the various sub-committees along the lines of the plan we drew up. It will be a great thing to have somebody who will act as buffer for all the detail and relieve ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson

... single combat with a large berg that was doing no particular harm to us, but against which he seemed suddenly to have conceived a violent spite. Luckily a considerable quantity of snow overlaid the ice, which, acting as a buffer, in some measure mitigated the violence of the concussion; while the very fragility of her build diminishing the momentum, proved in the end the little schooner's greatest security. Nevertheless, I must confess ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)

... at which skulking blackguards who have picked up paving-stones drop them into the gutters and think twice before they lay hand on their revolver butts. No puffing engine hauls the train: the motor-power is at the rear. First and foremost is a platform car,—open, uncovered, but over its buffer glisten the barrels of the dreaded Gatling gun, and around the gun—can these be soldiers? Covered with dust and cinders, hardly a vestige of uniform among them, in the shabbiest of old felt hats, in hunting-shirts of flannel or buckskin, ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King

... such a little ape that he will send you that disgusting coal mine on his card, as if you would care for it. I know you will like mine much better—-that old buffer skating into a hole in the ice. I don't mind being here, for though Harry and Davy get up frightfully early to go to church, they don't want us down till they come back, and we can have fun all day, except when Harry screws me down to ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge

... traverse curves easily a special arrangement of draw-bar is used, consisting of a T-piece with a wheel at each end working in a curved path in the back of the frame under the foot plate; on the back buffer beam a curved plate abuts against a rubbing piece on the tender, through which the draw-bar is passed and screwed up against an India-rubber washer, thus allowing the engine to move free of the tender as the curvature of the road road requires; the flanges ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various

... was crouching in the far corner of the cell. A man of peace, this place of blood and confusion was beyond his conception. He was in a daze, his mind having thrown up a buffer against horror. ...
— Before Egypt • E. K. Jarvis

... his chief cronies that evening before the arrival of the guests, "when my brother dies—and he is a terribly old buffer—I shall drop into a nice thing. But it is just like my confounded luck that he should linger so long. And to tell you the truth, D'Orsay, I'm a bit pinched, and some of the Jews ...
— As We Sweep Through The Deep • Gordon Stables

... toes and a Buffer, Still I've sunshine in my heart; Still I'm fond of tops and marbles Can appreciate a tart. I can love my Neighbor Nelly, Just as though I were a boy, And would hand her cakes and apples, From ...
— Neighbor Nelly Socks - Being the Sixth and Last Book of the Series • Sarah L. Barrow

... a month to rest them," insisted the buffer, becoming a trifle panic-stricken; and he tapped the sole of Ersten's ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester

... you know," said Murphy; "and I heard just now from Tim the waiter that there is a horse-dealer lately arrived at the stables here, who has a famous one with him, and I know Reilly the butcher has two or three capital dogs, and there's a wicked mastiff below stairs, and I'll send for my 'buffer,' and ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover

... went on, gettin varry red i' th' face, "do yo think at aw shall submit to be poisoned wi yor vile, disgustin tobacca smook? sich men as yo should ride in a cattle truck or a dog box—tho' if yo wor in there yo'd be taichin th' cawves an puppies bad habbits—Owd buffer, indeed! I'll have ...
— Yorkshire Tales. Third Series - Amusing sketches of Yorkshire Life in the Yorkshire Dialect • John Hartley

... the local government a full application of the various slave-protecting edicts. Whatever faults and mistakes they may have been guilty of in the nineteenth century, the Jesuits played, for two hundred years, a noble part in acting as a buffer between the Caucasian on the one hand, and the backward ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various

... retained in this register. In arithmetic operations it holds the addend, subtrahend, multiplicand, or divisor. The left 6 bits of this register communicate with the Instruction Register. The address portion of the Memory Buffer Register communicates with the Index Adder, the Memory Address Register, and the Program Counter. In certain instructions, the address portion of the control word does not refer to memory but specifies variations of an instruction, thus, the ...
— Preliminary Specifications: Programmed Data Processor Model Three (PDP-3) - October, 1960 • Digital Equipment Corporation

... the ground. It is worked by an electric locomotive, hauling ten wagons at a speed of 12 kilometers, or 7 miles per hour. The total weight drawn is eight tons. The gauge is a narrow one, so that the locomotive can be made of small dimensions. Its total length between the buffer heads is 2.43 meters; its height 1.04 meters; breadth 0.8 meter; diameter of wheels, 0.34 meter. From the rail head to the center of the buffers is a height of 0.675 meter; and the total weight is only 1550 kilogrammes, or say 3,400 lb. We give a longitudinal section through the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 417 • Various

... society occasionally demands. Who has not suffered from their enervating effects? We are not all possessed of that mental abstraction which La Fontaine succeeded in carrying with him throughout life, forming a buffer from which all idle talk rebounded. He was once asked to dinner by a 'fermier-general' to amuse the guests. Thoroughly bored, La Fontaine ate much and said little, and rising very early from the table ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan

... of "Hullo, you old buffer!" was equally free from any gloss of eloquence, but he hooked his hand in the doctor's arm as he made it, and kept ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell

... with any one, nor asked any one to drink; and, strange to say, no one resented this. As Vic said: "He was different." Dicky Merritt, the solicitor, who was hail-fellow with squatter, homestead lessee, cockatoo-farmer, and shearer, called him "a lively old buffer." It was he, indeed, who gave him the name of Old Roses. Dicky sometimes went over to Long Neck Billabong, where Old Roses lived, for a reel, as he put it, and he always carried away a deep impression ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... guides. The axle guards of the trailing wheels are formed of two 1/2 inch plates, with cast iron blocks between them to serve as guides. The ends of the rectangular frame are formed of plates 3/4 thick, and at the front end there is a buffer beam of oak 4-1/2 inches thick and 15 inches deep. The draw bolt is 2 inches diameter. There are two strong stays on each side, joining the barrel of the boiler to the inside framing, and one angle iron on each side ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne

... a real struggle for his life or his personal freedom, he might now have recovered that condition of trained and focussed energy which civilized life demands of men. But he was too primitive to be engaged by any purely intellectual purpose, and his money was a buffer between him and ...
— The Blood of the Conquerors • Harvey Fergusson

... be time enough, surely, to see the admiral when we are upon the ground. I'll warrant the old buffer is a true brick as ever was: there's no flinching ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest

... settlement that will enable us to be more supremely great as nationalists. This is the significance of the League of Nations. It is a plan of hope. It is the only plan which the mind of man has evolved which any number of nations has ever been willing to accept as a buffer against devil-made war. ... It is a monumental experiment which this century and other centuries will talk of and think of and write of because it involves the lives of men and women under it, and there is the possibility of giving our full thought and energy and wealth to making ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane

... commanded by Capt. Adna R. Chaffee, Sixth Cavalry. Trouble was known with Pima Indians, who lived across the river, where they had been placed a few years before by Tempe settlers, as a possible buffer against Apache raids. This reservation's extension cost Lehi several ...
— Mormon Settlement in Arizona • James H. McClintock

... his energies for a kick; but seeing O'Riley coming down towards him like a runaway locomotive, he pulled up, saying quietly to himself, "Ye may take it all yer own way, lad; I'm too old a bird to go for to make my carcass a buffer for a madcap like ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne

... a knife; a curved pair of scissors is better as the cutting should be done in a curved direction; but the best method is to use a file. The skin overhanging the nails should be pressed back once a week to keep them shapely. Rubbing the nails with a nail buffer or cloth will keep ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America

... distance, it seemed to be miles on miles, and I noticed that our terrific speed was slackening, also that the shaft grew more narrow, till at length there were only a few feet between the edge of the stone and its walls. The result of this, or so I supposed, was that the compressed air acted as a buffer, lessening our momentum, till at length the huge stone moved but ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard

... climate has sapped it all out of them, I reckon. Monty and I clubbed together and bought presents for his Majesty, the boss here, and Monty wrote out this little document—sort of concession to us to sink mines and work them, you see. The old buffer signed it like winking, directly he spotted the rum, but we ain't quite happy about it; you see, it ain't to be supposed that he's got a conscience, and there's only us saw him put his mark there. We'll have to raise money to work ...
— A Millionaire of Yesterday • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... source of happiness, a buffer that softens all the jolts of life. After David Sawney's failure to capture Perritaut's half-breed Atlantis and her golden apples at one dash, one would have expected him to be a little modest in approaching ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston



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