buffalo
See also: Buffalo
English
A herd of African buffalo (Syncerus caffer, sense 1)
An American bison (Bison bison, sense 2) in British Columbia
Etymology
From Portuguese or Spanish búfalo (“buffalo”), from Late Latin būfalus, from Latin būbalus, from Ancient Greek βούβαλος (boúbalos, “antelope, wild ox”).
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈbʌf.əl.əʊ/
Audio (UK) (file)
- (US) enPR: bŭf'ə-lō, IPA(key): /ˈbʌf.ə.loʊ/
Audio (US) (file)
Noun
buffalo (plural buffaloes or buffalos or buffalo)
- Any of the Old World mammals of the family Bovidae, such as the Cape buffalo, Syncerus caffer, or the water buffalo Bubalus bubalis.
- Synonym: (obsolete) buffle
- 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, OCLC 1167497017:
- "It must be a very wild stretch of country, and full of big game. I have always wanted to kill a buffalo before I die."
- A related North American animal, the American bison, Bison bison.
- Ellipsis of buffalo robe.
- The buffalo fish (Ictiobus spp.).
- (US slang) A nickel.
Derived terms
- African buffalo (Syncerus caffer)
- American buffalo
- atomic buffalo turd
- beefalo
- buffalo-berry
- buffalo berry (Shepherdia)
- buffalo bird
- buffalo bug (Dermestidae)
- buffalo bur
- buffalo-bur
- buffalo-bur nightshade
- buffalo burr
- buffalo-burr
- buffalo chip
- Buffalo City
- buffalo clover
- Buffalo County
- buffalo fly (Haematobia exigua)
- buffalo gnat (Simuliidae)
- buffalo grass
- buffalo hump
- buffalo jump
- Buffalo River
- buffalo robe
- buffalo sauce
- buffalo-skin
- buffalo soldier
- buffalo thorn
- buffalo weaver (Bubalornis, Dinemellia)
- buffalo wing
- buffalo worm
- Cape buffalo
- cattalo
- North American buffalo
- plains buffalo
- water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis)
- water buffalo calf
- wood buffalo
Translations
Old World mammals
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North American bison
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robe
fish
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked
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See also
- Appendix:Animals
- Appendix:English collective nouns
Verb
buffalo (third-person singular simple present buffaloes, present participle buffaloing, simple past and past participle buffaloed)
- (transitive) To hunt buffalo.
- (US, slang, transitive) To outwit, confuse, deceive, or intimidate.
- Synonyms: cow; see also Thesaurus:intimidate
- 1983, Sam Shepard, Fool for Love, San Francisco: City Lights Books, page 20:
- I'm just gonna let you have it. Probably in the midst of a kiss. Right when you think everything’s been healed up. Right in the moment when you're sure you've got me buffaloed. That's when you'll die.
- 1984, J. Victor Baldridge, The Campus and the Microcomputer Revolution, Macmillan, →ISBN, page xi:
- The nontechnical administrator should never be buffaloed by the esoteric vocabulary and the endless jargon of the computer expert.
- 1998, John Updike, Bech At Bay, Random House, →ISBN, page 287:
- He was speaking to an indifferent audience of pale polite faces, in an overheated space on the Northern edge of Europe, a subcontinent whose natives for a few passing centuries had bullied and buffaloed the rest of the world.
- 2006, William Zinsser, On Writing Well:
- If nonfiction is where you do your best writing, or your best teaching of writing, don't be buffaloed into the idea that it's an inferior species.
- (archaic, transitive) To pistol-whip.
- 1931, Stuart N. Lake, Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal, New York: Houghton Mifflin, page 173:
- Whereupon the twelve-inch barrel of the Buntline Special was laid alongside and just underneath the Rachal hatbrim most effectively. The buffaloed cattleman dropped to the walk, unconscious.
- 1975, Cliff Farrell, The Mighty Land, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, →ISBN, page 111:
- He walked arrogant and scornful among the Texans and cavalrymen whom he hazed and buffaloed with the barrels of his guns when they got out of line.
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Translations
hunt buffalo
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outwit, confuse
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pistol-whip
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See also
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
References
- buffalo at OneLook Dictionary Search
- Jonathon Green (2023), “buffalo n.1”, in Green's Dictionary of Slang
- Jonathon Green (2023), “buffalo n.2”, in Green's Dictionary of Slang
- Jonathon Green (2023), “buffalo v.”, in Green's Dictionary of Slang
Northern Sami
Etymology
Borrowed from English buffalo.
Noun
buffalo
- buffalo (Asian or African)
Inflection
This noun needs an inflection-table template.
Further reading
- Koponen, Eino; Ruppel, Klaas; Aapala, Kirsti, editors (2002–2008) Álgu database: Etymological database of the Saami languages, Helsinki: Research Institute for the Languages of Finland