buffalo
Pluralbuffaloes, buffalos, buffalo
Verbbuffaloes, buffaloing, buffaloed
Pluralbuffaloes, buffalos, buffalo
Formsbuffaloes, buffaloing, buffaloed
- 1An animal of the subtribe Bubalina, such as the Cape buffalo or the water buffalo.
The farmer hitched his buffalo to the plow and waded out into the flooded rice paddy.
On the savanna, a herd of buffalo can drive off even a hungry pride of lions.
Note
These are the true buffalos, named by way of Portuguese or Spanish búfalo from Latin būbalus and Greek boúbalos, "antelope, wild ox." Bubale and buffle are the same word arriving by other routes. The plural takes three shapes, buffaloes, buffalos or plain buffalo, as in a herd of buffalo; the American bison is only a relative that shares the name.
- 2The American bison, a North American animal related to the true buffalos.
A bull buffalo wandered across the park road in Yellowstone, and traffic waited while it grazed.
Millions of buffalo once roamed the Great Plains before hunters nearly wiped them out.
Similarbison
- 3To confuse, deceive, or intimidate someone, or to outwit them.
Don't let the lawyers buffalo you into signing something you haven't read.
The rookie pitcher buffaloed the league's best hitters with a slow, looping curveball.
Similarintimidate, bully, browbeat, cow, bulldoze
Note
The slang verb does most of its work in the passive: people are buffaloed by jargon or buffaloed into an idea, or someone has them buffaloed. Context decides whether the victim was fooled or cowed. Paired with bullied, as John Updike pairs it, the word leans toward intimidation, and there cow is its nearest synonym.
- 4Any of the fishes of the genus Ictiobus, also called buffalo fish.
He pulled a twenty-pound buffalo from the lake and mistook it at first for a carp.
Commercial fishermen on the river net buffalo and catfish to sell at local markets.
- 5Short for American buffalo, the gold bullion coin.
She bought a gold buffalo from a coin dealer as a hedge against inflation.
The dealer priced each buffalo at a small premium over the day's gold price.
Note
The coin's full name loses its first word here, leaving buffalo alone for the gold bullion coin the United States Mint first offered for sale in 2006. The short form is clear only where gold is already the subject, since the full name also means the bison itself, and buffalo on its own can be slang for a nickel, a coin worth rather less.
- 6Short for buffalo robe, a cured bison hide with the hair left on, used as a blanket or wrap.
The driver tucked a heavy buffalo around his passengers' knees before crossing the frozen river.
She slept on the wagon floor, wrapped in an old buffalo that still smelled of woodsmoke.
Note
Dropping robe leaves only the animal's name for the hide, so the sentence has to show that a blanket is meant: someone wrapped in a buffalo, or tucked under one. Like the full name, it belongs to American history rather than present-day speech, and the hide it names came from the bison, not from a true buffalo.
- 7To go hunting for buffalo.
Each fall the hunters rode west to buffalo on the open plains.
They spent the winter buffaloing along the river and came back with a wagonload of hides.
- 8A large person, or a stupid one; used as an insult.
Get out of the doorway, you big buffalo. People are trying to get through.
Only a buffalo like him would leave the tickets on the kitchen table twice.
Note
The insult has two targets, size and wits, and the sentence usually shows which one is meant: a buffalo in the way is big, a buffalo who makes the same mistake twice is dim. It is derogatory either way and belongs only in rough banter. It is broader than the insult about weight, which is usually aimed at women.
- 9An obese person, usually a woman; used as an insult.
She still remembers the boy who called her a buffalo in seventh grade.
A heckler yelled that the singer was a buffalo, and the crowd booed him out of the hall.
- 10A nickel, the five-cent coin of the United States.
Can you spot me a buffalo for the parking meter?
Back then a cup of coffee at the corner diner cost a buffalo.
Similarnickel
- 11Someone who looted during the American Civil War.
During the war, farmers along the river hid their horses whenever word came that buffaloes were riding through.
The Confederate home guard caught a buffalo with a wagonload of stolen silver.
Note
The word belongs to the American Civil War and survives only in writing about it. In such histories, buffaloes are men to fear rather than animals, and anyone using the word today has to explain it, since every other reader will hear the animal.
- 12An offensive, derogatory term for a Black male.
Less common meaning
- 13To hit someone with a pistol, typically over the head with its barrel.
The marshal buffaloed the drunk cowhand with his revolver and dragged him off to jail.
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.
1975, Cliff Farrell, The Mighty LandNote
Frontier lawmen used it for felling a man with a revolver's barrel instead of firing a shot. Stuart N. Lake's Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshal (1931) has a cattleman struck under the hatbrim with a Buntline Special and dropped unconscious on the walk. The word is archaic now, met mainly in writing about the Old West, while the slang verb for cowing someone is still in use.
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Origin
Borrowed from Portuguese or Spanish búfalo, from Late Latin būfalus and Latin būbalus, from Ancient Greek βούβαλος (boúbalos, “antelope, wild ox”). It is a doublet of bubale and buffle.