Free translatorFree translator
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Buff   /bəf/   Listen
Buff

verb
1.
Strike, beat repeatedly.  Synonym: buffet.
2.
Polish and make shiny.  Synonyms: burnish, furbish.  "Buff my shoes"



Related searches:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Buff" Quotes from Famous Books



... have chang'd my Eternal Buff too: but no matter, my little Gipsy wou'd not have found me out then: for if she should change hers, it is impossible I should know her, unless I should hear her prattle— A Pox on't, I cannot get her out of my Head: Pray Heaven, if ever I do see her again, she prove damnable ugly, that I may ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn

... not," continued Hermiston. "And I would send no man to be a servant to the King, God bless him! that has proved such a shauchling son to his own faither. You can splairge here on Edinburgh street, and where's the hairm? It doesna play buff on me! And if there were twenty thousand eediots like yourself, sorrow a Duncan Jopp would hang the fewer. But there's no splairging possible in a camp; and if ye were to go to it, you would find out for yourself whether Lord Well'n'ton approves of caapital punishment ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... o'clock the great bell of the northern tower, the one whose swinging stirred the house of the Huberts, began to ring; and it was at that very moment that Hubertine and Angelique reappeared. The former had put on a dress of pale buff linen, trimmed with a simple thread lace, but her figure was so slight and youthful in its delicate roundness that she looked as if she were the sister of her adopted daughter. Angelique wore her dress of white foulard, with its soft ruchings at the neck and wrists, and nothing ...
— The Dream • Emile Zola

... inflicting upon the continent of Europe; while "John Bull ground down" (June 1, 1795) shows the guineas being extracted from that long-suffering person, despite his cries of "Murder"; and in "Blind-man's Buff, or Too Many for John Bull" (June 12, 1795) he is being handed over, with Pitt's assistance, to the kicks and plunder of the Powers ...
— The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature • Selwyn Brinton

... is more rarely met with, was in bronze greens throughout, intermixed with yellow and about three shades of the dull blues. Black sometimes is to be noticed in both these colour schemes, also bright and buff yellows and chestnut browns, and the colours were mostly confined to the blue scheme first named, but there are examples extant of an entire design carried out in shades of red, as in the Tudor and early 16th century hangings one finds blues ...
— Jacobean Embroidery - Its Forms and Fillings Including Late Tudor • Ada Wentworth Fitzwilliam and A. F. Morris Hands

... the handsome, vigorous young fellow who was so happy at being alive, so that I had not the courage to check him, to show him his right road, and to call out to him, 'Take care!' as children do at blind man's buff. ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume III (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant

... not long engaged in their game of blind-man's buff, when the necessity of trusting to the touch came abruptly to an end—as if the handkerchief had been suddenly jerked from their eyes. The change was caused by a light streaming in through a side gallery into which they had strayed. It was at first dim and ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid

... attached, with the quality, sweet, sour, or slightly acid. In no instance was it found to be incorrectly stated. I came to one stall that contained nothing but glass jars of butter and cream. The butter was a rich buff color, like very fine qualities I had seen in my own country. The cream, an article I am fond of drinking, looked so tempting I longed to purchase a glass for that purpose. The lady whom I accompanied (my hostess' cook) informed me that it was artificially prepared. The butter and cheese ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley

... the buff envelope which had so startled Mollie was very brief. There were but eight or ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming

... picturesque in that era of artifice which seemed so picturesque to our forerunners. The sedan chair, the blue china, the fan, farthingale, and powdered head dress have now got the "rime of age" and are seen in fascinating perspective, even as the mailed courser, the buff jerkin, the cowl, and the cloth-yard shaft were seen by the men ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... anxiety and misery to William Whiffletree. The disturbed molar growled and twitched like mad; and, by daylight, poor Bill's cheek was swollen up equal to a printer's buff-ball, his mouth puckered, and his right eye ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley

... they wint through the jungle like buck-rabbits. About midnight we come to the shtrame which I had clane forgot to minshin to my orficer. I was on, ahead, wid four bhoys, an' I thought that the Lift'nint might want to the-ourise. "Shtrip, bhoys," sez I. "Shtrip to the buff, an' shwim in where glory waits!"—"But I can't shwim!" sez two av thim. "To think I should live to hear that from a bhoy wid a board-school edukashin!" sez I. "Take a lump av thimber, an' me an' Conolly here will ferry ye ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling

... game of blind-man's buff. I am beginning to feel young again," he said, and linking his arm in Clark's, he dragged him back to the others, where, in a few minutes they were all of one age, and a very riot of fun seemed to have ...
— Santa Claus's Partner • Thomas Nelson Page

... She brings the ends of the bond together, and kneels on the sheaf while she ties it, beating back her skirts now and then when lifted by the breeze. A bit of her naked arm is visible between the buff leather of the gauntlet and the sleeve of her gown; and as the day wears on its feminine smoothness becomes scarified by the stubble ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy

... pinkish-gray-buff, which may be called old ivory. It is not garish, as a dead white would be, especially in the strong California sunlight, but soft and restful to the eye. It harmonizes with the other colors selected, and, most important of all, ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber

... amazement at every step. Just as I came to the gate, I heard the galloping of horses behind me, looked round, and there most unexpectedly saw Hector Mowbray, pulling up his horse, with two livery servants, three grey-hounds, and a brace of pointers at his heels! He had new boots, buckskin breeches, a buff waist-coat, a scarlet coat with a green collar, and a gold button and loop, tassel, and hat-band. I was within a yard of him when he alighted. 'Bless me,' said I, 'Mr. Mowbray?'—'G—— d—— my blood! Trevor! Is ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... a puzzler," muttered the man. "Blind man's buff's nothing to it, and no pretty gals to catch. Now, whereabouts am I? I should say I'm just close to the corner by the square, and—well, now, ...
— The Bag of Diamonds • George Manville Fenn

... himself, drew a chair to the table and began to study. Truth, however, compels me to state that what he studied was not his German, although he had a recitation coming in forty minutes, but two sheets of buff paper torn from a scratch-pad and filled with writing interspersed with numerals and adorned with strange diagrams, in short, Tim's elucidation of the eight numbered plays which up to the present comprised Brimfield's budget ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour

... had not ceased a single instant, and he was so wet that it could be said without any figure of speech that the water ran down into his boots from the collar of his coat, for they were entirely filled with it. His hat of very fine beaver was so ruined that it fell down over his shoulders, his buff belt was perfectly soaked with water; in fact a man just drawn out of the river would not be wetter than the Emperor. The King of Saxony, who awaited him, met him in this condition, and embraced him as a cherished son who had just escaped a great danger; and this excellent ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... blindman's-buff with the forgery. Follow each step. Bendigo never sees his supposed brother once; you never see him again. Your united search through the woods is futile; but Jenny and her husband in the motor boat bring news of him. She comes back ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts

... by the beacon. Two stood apart from the others, looking to the right and the left of the hill. Both were armed with swords and arquebuses, and wore steel caps and coats of buff. Their sleeves were embroidered with the five wounds of Christ, encircling the name of Jesus—the badge of the Pilgrimage of Grace. Between them, on the verge of the mountain, was planted a great banner, displaying a silver cross, the chalice, and the Host, together with an ecclesiastical ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... arms were the regulation carbine and revolver of the cavalry to which they added on their own accord, hatchet, knife, spear, etc., and when fighting was to be done they would strip down to the buff or ...
— The Story of the First Trans-Continental Railroad - Its Projectors, Construction and History • W. F. Bailey

... or Nankeen Night Heron, n. the Australian bird Nycticorax caledonicus, Gmel. Both the Nankeen Bird and the Nankeen Hawk are so called from their colour. Nankeen is "a Chinese fabric, usually buff, from the natural colour of a cotton grown in the ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris

... was peculiar,—a snuff-colored coat reaching to his knees, a long vest of the same color, buff breeches, and a three-cornered hat. With him the fashion never changed; he had but one suit; not an extra coat, hat, or even two handkerchiefs. When his wardrobe gave out, and he was forced to see his tailor, he became very nervous. He would walk the room in agony, give orders to have ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various

... public would be keen enough to discover the falsehood; but, so that there be just so much approach to truth of color as may come up to the common idea of it in men's minds, that is to say, if the trees be all bright green, and flesh unbroken buff, and ground unbroken brown, though all the real and refined truths of color be wholly omitted, or rather defied and contradicted, there is yet quite enough for all purposes of imitation. The only facts then, which we ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin

... buff, we deposited our clothes on the boat's deck and entered the water, which was of just the right temperature to be refreshing; and while I swam delightedly hither and thither, Master Julius, who was extremely fastidious ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood

... peaches, and filberts on Mr. Morton's table, but that also a very merry party of children were assembled there, who danced on the lawn till the dusk of evening approached, and then played at blindman's buff in the ...
— The Bad Family and Other Stories • Mrs. Fenwick

... glee, even the quiet Alice seemed to have caught the infection. It was to be a regular old fashioned Xmas. Eve. All sorts of games and odd things, snap dragon, charades (for which Harry and Lucy were famous) magic music, dancing, and even blindmans buff was proposed but was over-ruled by the quieter members of the party. 'Santa Claus' sent a bountiful supply of presents down the chimney that night, which caused great merriment next day. For ladies ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings

... as to names, but in later years with only a glance at any specimen I could say, "Oh, yes! I always have known that. It has buff-coloured legs, clubbed antennae with buff tips, wings of purplish brown velvet with escalloped margins, a deep band of buff lightly traced with black bordering them, and a pronounced point close the apex of the front pair. When it came to books, all they had to teach me ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter

... up with an uproarious game of "Blind Man's Buff," in which Julia Duffy, a big muscular Irish girl, caught Mr. Egerton round the neck in a strangling grasp, and when she discovered whom she was embracing, she shrieked in horrified dismay, "Murderin' blazes! If ...
— Duncan Polite - The Watchman of Glenoro • Marian Keith

... games were marbles, checkers, backgammon, dominoes, hunt-the-slipper, blind-man's-buff, and in some houses, where they were not too strict, they played cards. High-low-jack, sometimes called all-fours or seven-up, everlasting and old maid were the chief games of cards. Most of these games have come down from a ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar

... beneath brows bristling like a wire-haired terrier's—were on the boy in the farther corner, who sat on his backer's knee, shoeless, stripped to the buff, with an angry red mark on the right breast below the collar-bone; a slight boy and a trifle undersized, but lithe, clear-skinned, and in the pink of condition; a handsome boy, too. By his height you might have guessed him under sixteen, but his face set ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... and then, the familiar red-and-buff uniforms of the British army officers, which are regarded with awe whenever they appear. For you must remember that after 1763 all the French hamlets were in British hands, and the English officers were the great men of this ...
— Stories of Later American History • Wilbur F. Gordy

... back again. As I reached the lobby on which his chamber opened, I perceived a long line of light issuing from the partially-opened door, within which stood Mr. Smith, the same odd figure I had just left; while along the boards was creeping towards him across the lobby, a great, big-headed, buff-coloured cat. I had never seen this ugly animal before; and it had reached the threshold of his door, arching its back, and rubbing itself on the post, before either appeared conscious of my approach, when, with an angry growl, it sprang into ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... sour? I might well look sour, since you and your little daughter lately chose to play blind-man's-buff with your lawful Prince, making a mock of him. But I pardon you, and hope you have come to your senses since. Come, sit down; drink my health in the wine cup. I trow this wine ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold

... vices, Eustace; Fighting! what's fighting? it may be in fashion among provant swords, and Buff-jerkin men: But w'us that swim in choice of Silks and Tissues; though in defence of that word Reputation, which is indeed a kind of glorious nothing, to lose a dram of blood must needs appear as coarse as ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher - Vol. 2 of 10: Introduction to The Elder Brother • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher

... Nickajack. Carolina Juice. Maverack's Sweet. Red Astrachan. Batchelor or King. Gravenstein. Buff. American Summer Pearmain. Shockley. Julian. Ben Davis. Mangum. Hall. Fall Pippin. Mallecarle. Maiden's Blush. Horse. Summer Rose. Bonum. Porter. Large Striped Pearmain. Rambo. Rawle's Janet. Large Early Bough. Disharoon. ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden

... only dance—those that were big enough—or assisted by their elders, in the form of governess or elder sister, play at forfeits and twilight, and blindman's buff. These innocent gambols they carried on in the wide entrance hall. Some flags had been hung, to please Milly, against the heavy beams of the ceiling, and the gardener had filled every niche ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann

... in size each year as new fungi grow on the outside, while old ones toward the center of the circle perish. This mushroom is small and slender, and rarely exceeds two inches in breadth. The cap and the tough and tubular stem are buff, and the gills, few in number and bulging out in the middle, are of a lighter shade of the same color. There is no ring about the stem. Several crops of the fairy-ring mushroom are produced all through the season, but the ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume V (of VI) • Various

... for workmen's barracks; the contents of two rubbish-pits (fig. 6, AA)—bones of edible animals, cherry-stones, shells of snails, and Dee mussels, potsherds, &c.—had a domestic look; mill-stones for grinding corn, including one bearing what seems to be a centurial mark, and fragments of buff imported amphorae were also found here. Between this enclosure and the river were two small buildings close together (fig. 5, no. 2 and fig. 7). The easternmost of these seems to have been a dwelling-house 92 feet long, with a corridor and two hypocausts; it may have ...
— Roman Britain in 1914 • F. Haverfield

... purposely asked to be excused from joining in these games, and every one said she understood the reason. Betty was too precious and valuable and altogether fascinating to be expected to rush about playing Blind-Man's Buff, and Puss-in-the-Corner, and Charades, and Telegrams, and all those games ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade

... put heart of grace into the timid Jeffrey. Sydney Smith's jovial optimism prevailed. The financial part of the business was arranged with Constable in Edinburgh, and Longman in London: and the first number (clad in that famous livery of Blue and Buff[19] which the Whigs had copied from Charles Fox's coat and waistcoat) appeared in the autumn of 1802. The cover ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell

... curious contrast to the Queen, who sat upon heaped-up cushions, her rich buff and black gown a blaze of jewels, her yellow hair, now streaked with grey, roped with pearls, her hands heavy with rings, her face past its youth, past its hopefulness, however noble and impressive, past its vivid beauty. Her eyes ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... even though you have to take turns at sitting in it, and books out of the public library or of your own purchase for the making of your family intelligent, and checkerboards and guessing matches, with an occasional blind man's buff, which is of all games my favorite. Rouse up your home with all styles of innocent mirth, and gather up in your children's nature a reservoir of exuberance that will pour down refreshing streams when life gets parched, and the dark days come, and the lights go ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage

... afterwards related. Every day till noon, he held his judicial sittings and dispatched such affairs of that kind as occurred, in the ordinary sober dress of a lawyer. After that, he dressed in richly embroidered uniforms, with a buff jerkin, a feather in his hat, and his musquet on his shoulder, exercising his company with much attention, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr

... But when the steward, on the morning of the eventful day, had mustered his troupe dore before the iron gate of the tower, the mother of Cuddie Headrigg the ploughman appeared, loaded with the jackboots, buff coat, and other accoutrements which had been issued forth for the service of the day, and laid them before the steward; demurely assuring him, that "whether it were the colic, or a qualm of conscience, she couldna ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... sat the Governor in his great chair. He was clothed in the regulation buff and blue uniform of a Major General of the Continental Army. On his shoulders he wore the epaulets and about his waist the sword knots General Washington had presented to him the preceding May. He bore also upon his person the most eloquent of martial trophies, for his leg, wounded at Quebec ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett

... however, use a foot lathe with buff wheels of various forms; but this vice is sufficient for all ...
— The History and Practice of the Art of Photography • Henry H. Snelling

... plantation, yaller-buff rose Dat in my ricollection grows; In my ol' dreams she seems to wait Whar she stood an' bloomed by de love-vine gate An' I ain't by myself in dreams like dat— No, I ...
— Daddy Do-Funny's Wisdom Jingles • Ruth McEnery Stuart

... which serves its usual purpose, in spite of all moral reformers and the scientific maxims of the dangers of bacteria (bacteria of love) incurred in and by osculation. Who cares about this kind of danger when under the mistletoe at Christmas—the fun and pleasure of obtaining it or at "blindman's buff," and the pretended wish and effort not to be caught. None of this in Victoria in ...
— Some Reminiscences of old Victoria • Edgar Fawcett

... eye, In "sweltered venom sleeping" lie,) Stick them in between the two, Proud Pea-hen and Old Cuckoo. Now you have the triple feather, Bind the kindred stems together With a silken tie whose hue Once was brilliant Buff and Blue; Sullied now—alas, how much! Only ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... all nations, in the streets; with red shirts, blue shirts, buff shirts, tawny shirts, and shirts of orange colour; with red caps, blue caps, green caps, great beards, and no beards; in Turkish turbans, glazed English hats, and Neapolitan head-dresses. There were the townspeople sitting in clusters on the pavement, or airing ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens

... Commander in Chief, it has become a matter of doubt with me, (although, as it respects myself personally, I was against all embroidery,) whether embroidery on the Cape, Cuffs, and Pockets of the Coat, and none on the buff waistcoat would not have a disjointed and awkward appearance." Probably nowhere did he show his good taste more than in his treatment of the idea of putting him in classic garments when his ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford

... path like birds of prey, which, about to make a stoop, have folded their wings. Often, too, the old man, opening his cloak, beat his arms against his breast to warm himself, or blew upon his fingers, ill protected from the cold by a pair of buff gloves reaching nearly to the elbow. At last he saw a slight shadow ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny

... wish'd that her pleasure could Endure as long as a buff-jerkin would. Content thee, Kate; although thy pleasure wasteth, Thy pleasure's place like a buff-jerkin lasteth, For no buff-jerkin hath been oftener worn, Nor hath more scrapings or more ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe

... sisters sat down at nine-o'clock, in mob caps, and the two younger in white dresses, all had been up at least two hours. Aurelia led forward little Eugene in a tailed red coat, long-breasted buff waistcoat, buff tights and knitted stockings, with a deep frilled collar under the flowing locks on his shoulders, in curls which emulated a wig. She had been helping him to prepare "his tasks" from the well-thumbed ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge

... room of the Devil's Tooth ranch Tom Lorrigan sat and sharpened an indelible pencil with the razor-edged small blade of his jackknife. On the open space which Tom had cleared with the sweep of his arm, a large-sized tablet of glazed and ruled paper, with George Washington pictured in red and blue and buff on the cover, received the wood parings from the pencil. It may have been significant that Tom was careful in his work and made the pencil ...
— Rim o' the World • B. M. Bower

... dress—that required a great deal of thought; her pink dress was too shabby to be thought of a moment; her blue one had neither tucks, nor flounces; (and who ever heard of a party dress with a plain skirt?) her buff one was not gay enough; in short, she had been seen in all those dresses—she ought to have a bran new one—a cherry silk, for instance, with swan's down round the neck and shoulders; that would be charming. Mary Scott told her, that her Philadelphia cousin had ...
— Little Ferns For Fanny's Little Friends • Fanny Fern

... them. They are ruled, like tragic characters, by necessity and blindness; but the blindness, instead of leading to tragic ruin, leads only to being caught as in some harmless game of blind-man's-buff. There is retribution, but Falstaff is only pinched by the fairies. Comedy of intrigue and comedy of character lead to no real catastrophe. The end of it on the stage is not death but matrimony; and "home well pleased ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry

... ten men and women seated about a couple of tables. Like the person we had just encountered, they all exhibited a picturesque elaboration of the costume permitted by their mode of travel; making effective groupings in their ample draperies of buff and green and white, with glimpses of a flushed and pretty face or two among the loosened veilings. Upon the tables were pots of tea, plates of sandwiches, Madame Brossard's three best silver dishes heaped with fruit, and some bottles of dry champagne from the cellars ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington

... returning voice ever speaketh, for are they not Eleusinian mysteries? But when thou meetest, O brother, sailing down the stream under gay flags and rounding sails, some Hogarth or some Sterne, who playeth rouge et noir with keen old Pharaohs, and battledore with Charlie Buff; who singeth brave Libiamos, and despiseth not the Christmas plums of Johnny Horner; who payeth graceful court to the great and learned, and warmeth the pale hearts of the shivering poor with his kind cheer and gentle words; who sitteth with Socrates and Pericles ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... upon our friend Tom Sterling, a worthy fellow, much respected on 'Change. Miss Sterling is deep in a natty duodecimo, whose Flemish aspect speaks volumes in favour of international copyright. Our natural clearsightedness enables us to read, even from the door, "Societe Belge de Librairie" upon its buff paper cover. Is the book hastily smuggled under sofa-cushions, or stealthily dropped into the neglected work-basket? By no means. The fair student deliberately marks her place, and engages us in a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various

... o'clock when the "Comet," polished and oiled and looking as neat in his dark blue and buff uniform as a soldier on parade, stood ready for departure. The hamper of luncheon was strapped on behind, and underneath the middle seats in a pan of ice were bottles of root beer and ginger ale. Presently he started down ...
— The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp • Katherine Stokes

... other eyes than his own. The details of his campaigns are, of necessity, the less interesting to a general reader from their very completeness. Desultory or semi-civilised warfare, where the play of the human passions is distinctly visible, where individual man, whether in buff jerkin or Milan coat of proof, meets his fellow man in close mortal combat, where men starve by thousands or are massacred by town-fulls, where hamlets or villages blaze throughout whole districts or are sunk beneath the ocean—scenes ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... a strongly built man who could not be a year over fifty. He had a ruddy face, clean shaven except for a grizzled moustache; his grizzled hair was thinning round the temples; but his skin was unwrinkled and his eyes had all the vigour of youth. His tweed suit was well cut, and the buff waistcoat with flaps and pockets and the plain leather watchguard hinted at the sportsman, as did the half-dozen racing prints on the wall. A pleasant high-coloured figure he made; his voice had the frank ring ...
— Huntingtower • John Buchan

... looking where, in one corner, sitting bolt upright, with his eyes half closed, there was a fine young owl, just fully fledged and fit to fly, while nothing could be more beautiful than his snow-white, flossy breast, and the buff colour of his back, all dotted over with ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn

... main hall, which is on the floor above the Long Room. This hall is one of the most beautiful apartments in the city. It is seventy-four feet long, fifty-four feet wide, and fifty-two feet four inches high. Its lofty ceiling is arched and decorated with bright red and buff penciling upon a sky blue ground, while the walls are relieved by broad square pilasters, painted in brilliant bronze, with tall windows and arched tops rising between, and other spaces between the columns covered with drapery in ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... hand the shallow basket of round brown eggs, with two tiny white ones on the top for themselves that had been laid by Specky, the lovely black-and-buff bantam. Then, with many kisses and warnings to be careful, she set the happy pair upon their ...
— Two Little Travellers - A Story for Girls • Frances Browne Arthur

... a junior member of the same, now goes forth from it in the way we see. "Why should a young fellow that has capabilities," thought Conrad, "stay at home in hungry idleness, with no estate but his javelin and buff jerkin, and no employment but his hawks, when there is a wide opulent world waiting only to be conquered?" This was Conrad's thought; and it proved to be a ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle

... the eye. Even the grand quadrangle of the Tuileries seems dismal after it, grand as are its ogre-roofed 'pavilions' and triumphal arch, for it lacks the refreshing verdure. The eye wearies of the everlasting buff color. ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various

... says Buff to all his men, And I say Buff to you again. Buff neither laughs nor smiles, But carries his face With a ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge

... "Blind man's buff," was next proposed, and 'Lena's heart leaped up, for that was her favorite game. John Jr. was first blinded, but he caught them so easily that all declared he could see, and loud were the calls ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes

... at the Green Dragon. Mr. Brooke, conscious of having weakened the blasts of the "Trumpet" against him, by his reforms as a landlord in the last half year, and hearing himself cheered a little as he drove into the town, felt his heart tolerably light under his buff-colored waistcoat. But with regard to critical occasions, it often happens that all moments seem comfortably remote until ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... so constantly thinking of this one subject. But children led so easy a life, before any Troubles came into the world, that they had really a great deal too much leisure. They could not be forever playing at hide-and-seek among the flower-shrubs, or at blind-man's-buff with garlands over their eyes, or at whatever other games had been found out while Mother Earth was in her babyhood. When life is all sport, toil is the real play. There was absolutely nothing to do. A little sweeping ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... BUFF STICKS.—Fig. 25.—These are usually from one to three feet in length, and about three inches wide—some think two and a half sufficient. The underside, which is convex, is covered with a strip of finely prepared buckskin, or velvet, well ...
— The History and Practice of the Art of Photography • Henry H. Snelling

... parts of the empire, and of various imperial officials, made the society a pleasant and lively one. Goethe soon found friends. His favorite house was occupied by one of the officials of the order, by name Buff, an honest man with a large family of children. The second daughter, Lotte, blue-eyed, fair and just twenty years of age, was first met by Goethe, shortly after his arrival, at a ball at Wolpertshausen. She strongly attracted him; he became a constant visitor at the house. ...
— Autobiography • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

... of all the above species are of similar appearance, the ground colour being greenish, or buff, or the hue of stone or cream, with reddish or brownish blotches. Three is the full complement of eggs. The bare white glittering sands on which these eggs are deposited are often at noon so hot as to be painful to touch; accordingly during ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar

... going away to more distant places should create no suspicion. Mr. M. then informed us that we could come to his cottage the next afternoon, instead of the rocks; we should be able to undress ourselves in the buff, and have a perfect orgie of salacious delights. We heartily approved of this plan, and after an amusing conversation, we parted to meet the next day on the sands, but in the contrary directions to the rocks, for ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous

... appearance, height and breadth of shoulder would have attracted attention anywhere. The Captain wore a gray felt hat and a rough gray suit of tweed—his trousers tucked in his long riding boots. Jose was clad in the typical vaquero's costume—buff leggins and jacket of goat-skin, slashed and ornamented with silver threads and buttons, and a red worsted sash about his middle in which he carried a knife and pistol. From beneath the broad brim of his sombrero peeped the knot of ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown

... guests being almost all well acquainted with each other, at the solicitation of jolly little Mrs. Bloomingal, Sister Lu had consented to make a pleasant Christmas kind of time of it, in which everybody was permitted to be young again and romp with the rompiest. We played Blindman's-buff till we tired of that—Daniel, to Lu's great delight, coming out splendidly as Blindman, and evincing such "cheek" in the style he hunted down and caught the ladies, as satisfied me that nothing but his sight stood in the ...
— A Brace Of Boys - 1867, From "Little Brother" • Fitz Hugh Ludlow

... the elbow to the shoulder," replied the seafaring man. "Saving your presence, I'll strip to the buff." ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang

... to the Perkins gate and was so long about hitching the horse that Rebecca's heart beat tumultuously at the thought of Emma Jane's heart waiting under the blue barege. Then he brushed an imaginary speck off his sleeve, then he drew on a pair of buff kid gloves, then he went up the path, rapped at the knocker, ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... with her exuberant youthfulness. Basset-tables and boudoir intrigues were alike deserted to enjoy the new era of nursery games which she inaugurated. Jaded gallants and sedate Ladies of the Bedchamber mingled their shrieks of laughter in blind-man's buff and hunt-the-slipper with the Stuart maid as Lady of Misrule and arch-spirit of jollity. Pepys was shocked—or affected to be—one day by seeing all the great and fair ones of the Court squatting on the floor in the Whitehall gallery playing at "I love my love with an A ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall

... nature, it approaches nature as nearly as it may; sometimes understating, sometimes exaggerating, sometimes substituting ideal or conventional renderings for strict realities. Water, for instance, is always represented by a flat tint of blue, or by blue covered with zigzag lines in black. The buff and bluish hues of the vulture are translated into bright red and vivid blue. The flesh-tints of men are of a dark reddish brown, and the flesh-tints of women are pale yellow. The colours conventionally assigned to each animate and inanimate object were taught in the ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero

... Monsieur and Madame arrived. Monsieur had the kindness to give me the room which he vacated. As I was in the apartment of Monsieur, where no one knew that I was lodged, I was awoke by a noise. I drew back my curtain, and was much astonished to find my chamber quite filled by men in large buff skin collars, who appeared surprised to see me, and who knew me as ...
— Louis XIV., Makers of History Series • John S. C. Abbott

... abundance. Martha held them up lovingly in different angles to show how they "make a pattern every way you look at them." There were the "Pavements of New York" in blue and white, the "Double Irish Chain" in red and white, "Fox and Geese" in buff and white; there were daintily hemstitched sheets and pillow covers; there were hooked mats in great variety, a lovely one in autumn leaves which seemed a wonderful creation to Pearl; there were pin-cushions, all ribbon and lace, and picture-frames ready for pictures, made of pine cones ...
— The Second Chance • Nellie L. McClung

... borrowed the notion from The Spectator, No. 43, where Steele, after saying that the poet blundered because he was 'vivacious as well as stupid,' continues:—'A fool of a colder constitution would have staid to have flayed the Pict, and made buff of his skin for the wearing ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill

... a long "check apron" or calico pinafore with sleeves—a local garment—which was utterly incongruous with her originality. Her skin was olive, inclining to yellow, or rather to that exquisite shade of buff to be seen in the new bark of the madrono. Her face was oval, and her mouth small and childlike, with little to suggest the aboriginal type ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... kape on!" shouted the enraptured Pat; "don't be throublin yesilf with questions; dear knows it's mesilf that's in it;" and his smiling face was mirrored in numerous brass buttons, which were hanging around his buff vest. ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale

... "How do, Buff! Pleased to have met you. So kind of you to make hay in my drawing-room," which reproof brought Pixie quickly to her rightful position. That was another English characteristic of Dick Victor—he hated disorder, and ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey

... spins a dense, hard cocoon, usually attached to leaves. There {104} are two generations in the Southern states, and one in the Northern states. The moth which comes out of the cocoon has a wing spread of fully five inches. It is reddish-gray or somewhat buff in color with darker bands near the edge of the wings, which themselves are pinkish on the outside, and with a large clear spot near the centre of the forewing and a regular eyespot (clear in part and blue in the rest) in the centre ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America

... several species are dull-coloured, while in the adjacent islands they are more brilliant." Again:[63] "In Amboyna and Ceram the female of the large and handsome Ornithoptera Helena has the large patch on the hind wings constantly of a pale dull ochre or buff colour; while in the scarcely distinguishable varieties from the adjacent islands, of Bouru and New Guinea, it is of a golden yellow, hardly inferior in brilliancy to its colour in the male sex. The female of Ornithoptera ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart

... large; the brow was high and sloping; the nose, rather sharp; every curve of the mouth, clear cut and delicate; the eyes, black, bright and piercing. Such was the man who, attired in a suit of black broadcloth, with buff vest, ruffled shirt, and white stock, and with hair tied in a modish queue, revealed himself to the gaze of the throng in front of ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable

... Woodpecker! [To CHANTECLER.] We will ask the learned gentleman in the green coat. [To the WOODPECKER the upper half of whose figure appears at a round hole high up in the tree trunk; his coat is green, his waistcoat buff, and he wears a red skull-cap.] Do you say ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand

... During the first few days they had no serious mishap: they lost an oar, broke a barometer-tube and occasionally struck a bar. All around them abounded examples of that natural architecture which is seen from the passing train at the "City"—weird statuary, caverns, pinnacles and cliffs, dyed gray and buff, red and brown, blue and black—all drawn in horizontal strata like the lines of a painter's brush. Mooring the boats and ascending the cliffs after making camp, they saw the sun go down over a vast landscape of glittering rock. The shadows fell in the valleys and gulches, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various

... by the sea, A skittish and beautiful widow is she; She has black shiny tresses, and curly buff toes, And a heavenly tilt to ...
— Fishy-Winkle • Jean C. Archer

... of yellow Bees-wax, and head of black Dubin and black Silk, or you may make the Body of yellow washed Leather, Shamey or Buff, and the head all of black Silk, and this is an Incomparable bait for Trout, Salmon or Smelts, and those that are natural are most Excellent baits for Trout, Grayling, Salmons, Tench, Roach, Chub, Dace, Carp, Tench, Ruff, Bream and Bleak; but then ...
— The School of Recreation (1696 edition) • Robert Howlett

... Then there was the buff-cochin spats and the wide ribbon to his eyeglasses. Beyond that I don't know as there was anything real freaky about him. A rich-colored old gent he is, the pink in his cheeks shadin' off into a deep mahogany tint ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford

... inches wide, and from fifteen to twenty-five yards long. They are known, however, of larger dimensions, reaching to a yard in width and sixty yards in length. The most common color is white; next, perhaps, red, and next yellow; though green, blue, purple and black are worn, as are also buff, shot colors and gray, these latter being usually of silk; but this does not exhaust the varieties, for there are many turbans made of cotton cloth printed in various devices to suit the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various

... intention, he took Colonel Greenfell's horse, upon which was strapped a saddle that the owner valued very highly, and behind the saddle was tied a buff coat equally as much prized, and in the coat was all the gold the Colonel had brought from Richmond, when he came to join us—and thus equipped he sallied out with one companion, to ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke

... frail form clad in a buff-colored smock, turned and surveyed the laboratory. In the center of the square room five improvised operating tables were drawn up, each one flooded individually with, light from focused flood-tubes above in the white ceiling. Flanking them were tables for instruments ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore

... appeared to be a cast-off spring overcoat, out of season and color on this blustering winter day, a rich buff waistcoat of an embossed pattern, such as few persons would care to assume, save, perhaps, a gambler, negro buyer, or fine "buck" barber. The assumption of a large and flashy pin stood in his frilled shirt-bosom. He ...
— Tales of the Chesapeake • George Alfred Townsend

... Buff," though not a rhyme-game, is yet so well known it is worth mentioning for the mere purpose of telling its story. Like many more such—if we only knew how—it is based on fact. It is of French origin, and of very great antiquity, having ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford

... stopped, and tapping gently at it, it was opened by a stout fellow, with buff-coat and jack-boots, and pistols stuck in his belt, as also a long cavalry ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... to know is, why a lady should have to strip to the buff just to play with a pigeon?" breathed John Flint, and ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler

... peoples never know nothin more den dogs in dem times. Never couldn' go from one plantation to de other widout dat dey had a ticket wid em. I see Sam Watson catch many of dem dat had run way en buff en gag em. Never have no jails nowhe' in dat day en time. Dey sho sell de colored peoples way plenty times cause I see dat done right here to Marion. Stand em up on a block en sell em to a speculator dere. I hear em bid off a 'oman en her baby dere en den dey bid off my auntie ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... concerning it, as that the Turkey carpet costs fifty pounds to clean, and that one of the great vases is cracked across the pedestal, owing to the rough treatment accorded to it during a riotous game of Blind Man's Buff, played one night by four young Princesses, a Balkan King, ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett

... pie, made in the shape of a cratch or cradle, was placed on the board. This being accounted a great test of orthodoxy, every one was obliged to eat a slice, lest he should be suspected of favouring the heretical tenets then spreading widely throughout the land. Blind-man's-buff and hot-cockles had each their turn; but the sport that seemed to afford the most merriment was a pendulous stick having an apple at one end, and on the other a lighted candle, so that the unfortunate and liquorish wight who bit ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby

... two Sleepers-in-buff on earth?" replied the other. "I have just seen him; he is togged out like one of the swell mob. They will be at table ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... figure of a hunchback, with the sharp lean features that generally accompany deformity. He wore a pointed black beard, and he was smiling from ear to ear, showing his white fangs. He was dressed in buff, black, and scarlet, and crossed with more straps and belts than I could count, from which hung all manner of things. Behind, he carried a magic lantern, and two boxes, which I well knew, in one of which was a salamander, and in the other ...
— Carmilla • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... and engage Mrs. Perkins to make us each a couple of Scotch gingham dresses. She has our measures, and we wish them simple, full-skirted gowns, like the last; everybody thinks them so pretty and becoming. Bell's two must be buff and pink, Polly's grey and green, and mine blue and brown. We find that we haven't clothes enough for a three months' stay; and the out-of-door life is so hard upon our 'forest suits' that we have asked Mrs. Perkins to send us new ones as ...
— A Summer in a Canyon: A California Story • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... that justice is blind; I have learned to believe it, for it stumbles, and gropes, and lays iron claws on the wrong person. As for the lawyers? They are fit pilots: and the courts are little better than blind man's buff. Don't stand chewing your mustache, Ned. Tell me what you want me to do, while baby is asleep. She has a vexatious habit of taking ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson

... three-times screen, and one-fortieth of a second exposure sufficed at F 8. The plate was developed with Kalogen in tank rather softly and a contact positive made of the negative. This positive was then used to make an 11x14 negative by enlargement. P. M. C. No. 8 paper, buff stock, was selected, and in printing a piece of thin, even-grained paper was placed between the negative and the print paper to gain a certain softness of quality in the finished print. Finally when dry the print was waxed and rubbed down several times to give extra life and richness, ...
— Pictorial Photography in America 1921 • Pictorial Photographers of America

... bulging like sculptured urns! and, lining the distant wall, what vast cupboards, suggestive of inexhaustible apricot jam and promiscuous butler's perquisites! A stray picture or two had found their way down there, and made agreeable patches of dark brown on the buff-coloured walls. High over the loud-resounding double door hung one which, from some indications of a face looming out of blackness, might, by a great synthetic effort, be pronounced a Magdalen. Considerably lower down hung the similitude ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot

... which Harold took over the responsibility of all proprietorship of the crisp morsel of paper that he slipped with slow firmness into the pocket of his waistcoat, rubbing it gently in its passage against the delicately buff-coloured duck of which that garment was composed. "So quite too awfully kind of you that I really don't know what to say"—there was a marked recall, in the manner of this speech, of the sweetness of his mother's droop and the tenderness of her wail. It was as if he had been moved for ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James

... intended to provide for the safeguarding of wealth after it was secured, could be such dolts as to allow themselves to be robbed of all their accumulated wealth by a device as simple as that by which children play at blindman's buff. The process was no more complex than that employed by the robber of old, who took the pebbles from the beach, marked them money, and with the money bought the labour of his fellows, and by the manipulation of that labour and by turning pebbles into ...
— Friday, the Thirteenth • Thomas W. Lawson

... that if he blew on them the whole town would be at once destroyed. The bystanders laughed at him, whereupon he got angry and blew on the horns. Then there was a great noise and an enormous herd of wild buff aloes was seen rushing down to destroy the town. However before they could do any damage he ran out and assured them that he was unhurt; at this the buffaloes were pacified; then all the straw and grain in the palace was brought out and given to the buffaloes ...
— Folklore of the Santal Parganas • Cecil Henry Bompas

... the buff." Montgomery looked askance at the tall, red-headed woman who was standing gazing out of ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle

... the verandah as the four rode up, with her eyes, which, save for a fixity of gaze, showed nothing of their affliction, staring away into the distance where the clump of trees stood out, purple-blue in their shade above the buff of the sun-dried grass and against the pure, transparent azure ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott

... pavement of that ancient street where the old Slaughters' Coffee-house was once situated—George Osborne came into the coffee-room, looking very haggard and pale; although dressed rather smartly in a blue coat and brass buttons, and a neat buff waistcoat of the fashion of those days. Here was his friend Captain Dobbin, in blue and brass too, having abandoned the military frock and French-grey trousers, which were the usual coverings of his ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... was no such toy in this country, she said, but she did not laugh at them, or seem to think them silly. And she advised them to be content with the prettiest balls they could get, which were of nice smooth buff-coloured leather, very well made, and neither too soft nor too hard. And in the sunlight, said Jeanne, they really had rather a shiny, ...
— The Tapestry Room - A Child's Romance • Mrs. Molesworth

... served the entire company, as usual, repaired to the meadow, where they played blind man's buff. Katiousha went with them. After some exchanges came Nekhludoff's turn to run with Katiousha. Nekhludoff always liked to see Katiousha, but it had never occurred to him that their relations could ever be any but the ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy

... to see us, there was much rejoicing from brother Barnes, who was full of life and spirits, and always ready to play, and from Arminda and myself; but brother Horace, not at all allured by blind-man's-buff or a dance, would retire to a corner with a pine knot (for in those days candles were few), preferring the companionship of his book to our merry games. Coaxing was all in vain: the only means of inducing him to join us was to snatch away his book and hide it; but even then he preferred ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland

... swoop; "my eyes fairly bleeds for poor Mrs. Maggs" (the housekeeper), "that they do. 'Twas bad enough in the old country, where we knew our places, even though some was ambitioned to get out of them; but here it's like blind man's buff, and enough to turn a body giddy. Mrs. Maggs hasn't a sittin' room of her own where she and the butler and the nurse can have their tea in peace or entertain guests, but she sets two tables in the servants' hall, and a pretty time she ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright

... yards further down was the royal entrance, canopied and carpeted, with the King's barge rocking at the foot, a number of servants coming and going on the platform, and the great state windows overlooking all; but here they were in comparative quiet. A small doorway with its buff and steel-clad sentry before it opened on their right into the ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson

... barrels, washtubs, etc., offering admirable nooks for playing hide and seek. Two tallow candles threw a faint light over the scene on certain occasions. This cellar was on a level with a large kitchen where we played blind man's buff and other games when the day's work was done. These two rooms are the center of many of the merriest memories of ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... moved slowly about, groping with his hands and feet as if he were playing blindman's buff. The ground was soft, and the air seemed fresh. In fact, it was not so bad as he had at first thought. Only four things worried him, darkness, hunger, thirst, and fear. Aside from these ...
— Pinocchio in Africa • Cherubini



Words linked to "Buff" :   bacchanal, tegument, buff-colored, yellowish brown, polish, follower, blindman's buff, following, snuff-colour, metalhead, groupie, leather, aficionado, smoothen, smooth, brownness, snuff-color, cutis, implement, aerophile, followers, raw sienna, chromatic, skin, brown, shine, hit, buff-brown, amorist, in the buff, bacchant



Copyright © 2024 Free Translator.org