buffers

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of buffer.

   Engineers inspected the buffers at each end of the railcar for damage.

   Wetlands act as natural buffers between rising rivers and nearby towns.

   Note

   The plural carries every trade the singular works in, and context does the sorting. In a lab, buffers are solutions that hold a liquid's pH steady when acid or alkali is added. On the railway, they cushion the impact between carriages. On a hard floor, they are rotary-brush cleaning machines. In old Irish slang, buffers were boxers, a use now archaic and best left to period writing.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of buffer.

   The player buffers incoming data before sending it to the screen.

   A row of tall trees buffers the house from the noise of the highway.

   Note

   In computing the form works both with and without an object. A program buffers incoming data, but a stream can also simply buffer while it waits to be processed. In other fields it takes an object: a chemist buffers a solution near a chosen pH, and a game buffers a player's input so it fires the moment it can. In the protective sense, from marks what is kept away.

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