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adjective
Buff  adj.  Firm; sturdy. "And for the good old cause stood buff, 'Gainst many a bitter kick and cuff."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Buff" Quotes from Famous Books



... up the remainder of the morning and the afternoon. In the evening they were ready for another romp in which the girls might have a share; so Stage Coach, Blind-man's Buff, and ...
— Christmas with Grandma Elsie • Martha Finley

... vein in Chopin's character. The accounts of his melancholy, in fact, like those of his ill-health, have been too much exaggerated. He was often in a cheerful mood. Sometimes he would amuse himself for a whole evening playing blind-man's buff with the children. As a mere child he had formed the habit of mimicking and caricaturing pianists and other distinguished men. Liszt often suffered from this mischievous habit, but he did not complain, ...
— Chopin and Other Musical Essays • Henry T. Finck

... pounding 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 my ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... cabbage, and are similar in composition. They are entirely the product of cultivation, and constitute the inflorescence of the plant, which horticultural art has made to grow into a compact head of white color in the cauliflower, and of varying shades of buff, green, and purple in the broccoli. There is very little difference between the two aside from the color, and they are treated alike for culinary purposes. They were known to the Greeks and Romans, and highly appreciated by connoisseurs. They are ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg

... suspended if it had been discovered by the college faculty. There were many foolish, monkish restrictions at Harvard in those days, and among them it was not considered decorous for a student to wear a colored vest. He might wear a white vest, but not a buff or a figured one. Sumner preferred a buff vest, and insisted on wearing it. When he was reprimanded for doing so he defended his course vigorously, and exposed the absurdity of the regulation in such plain terms that the ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns

... sun poured into the gay little drawing-room, all buff and dull rose, in the charming French style, and full of sweet spring flowers in bowls and square jars of Majolica ware. The height of the appartement made it delightfully airy and bright, and through the western windows I glimpsed the feathery tips of the delicate new green ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell

... of meteorites, and for many years wrote the digest on the literature of meteorites in the Jahresbericht der Chemie; he possessed, perhaps, the best private collection of meteoric stones and irons existing. Whler and Sainte Claire Deville discovered the crystalline form of boron, and Whler and Buff the hydrogen compounds of silicium and a lower oxide of the same element. This is by no means a full statement of Whler's scientific work; it even does not mention all the discoveries which have ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 362, December 9, 1882 • Various

... supplied with rottenstone and water. 2. What is the best method of polishing steel? A. The usual method is to grind first on a coarse wet stone, then on a fine wet stone, then on a lead lap supplied with fine emery and oil, and finally polish on a buff wheel supplied with dry crocus and revolving ...
— Scientific American, Volume XLIII., No. 25, December 18, 1880 • Various

... courtly courting, tempting me to think it possible that a fortunate selection and a mutual deference may subscribe to human happiness:—filled the paragraphs. Reviews of her first literary venture were mentioned once: 'I was well advised by Mr. Redworth in putting ANTONIA for authoress. She is a buff jerkin to the stripes, and I suspect that the signature of D. E. M., written in full, would have cawed woefully to hear that her style is affected, her characters nullities, her cleverness forced, etc., etc. As ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... all the more exciting! Blindman's buff! Hide and go seek! What fun you must have with your friends ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus

... of his life remained unchanged, save that it was the room of the frail beauty, rather than of Madame de Maintenon, which attracted him in the afternoon. And in sympathy with this sudden relapse into his old life, his coats lost something of their sombre hue, and fawn-colour, buff-colour, and lilac began to replace the blacks and the blues. A little gold lace budded out upon his hats also and at the trimmings of his pockets, while for three days on end his prie-dieu at the royal chapel had been unoccupied. His walk was brisker, and he gave a youthful ...
— The Refugees • Arthur Conan Doyle

... ranks with musket, musket-staff, bandelier, sword, powder, ball, and match. Ilk company, both horse and foot, had their captains, lieutenants, ensigns, sergeants, and other officers and commanders, all for the most part in buff coats and goodly order. They had five colours or ensigns, whereof the Earl of Montrose had one having his motto drawn in letters, 'For Religion, the Covenant, and the Countrie.' The Earl Marechal had one, the Earl of Kinghorn had one, and the town of Dundee ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton

... she took us by and by and showed us indeed some pictures at one Hiseman's, a picture drawer, a Dutchman, which is said to exceed Lilly, and indeed there is both of the Queenes and Mayds of Honour (particularly Mrs. Stewart's in a buff doublet like a soldier) as good pictures, I think, as ever I saw. The Queene is drawn in one like a shepherdess, in the other like St. Katharin, most like and most admirably. I was mightily pleased with this sight indeed, and so back again to their lodgings, where ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys

... when the winter rain had very likely dulled everybody's sense of more moderate humor, the blue law of quietness was lifted from the atmosphere; and between five and six o'clock we spread butterfly wings again, and had blind man's buff. We ran around the large centre-table, and made this gambol most tempestuously merry. If anything had been left upon the table before we began, it was removed with rapidity before we finished. There was a distinct understanding that our blindfolded father must not be permitted to ...
— Memories of Hawthorne • Rose Hawthorne Lathrop

... scrupulously clean and neatly pressed khaki suit, which set forth rather bumpily his solid figure. A serviceable pith helmet barely overhung the protrusive goggles. His hands were encased in white cotton gloves, a size or two too large. Dismal buff spots on the palms impaired their otherwise virgin purity. As the wearer carried his hands stiffly splayed, the blemishes were obtrusive. Altogether, one might have said that, if he were going in for farce, he was ...
— The Unspeakable Perk • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... they had been walking along hand in hand. Sara noticed that they had left the Verge behind, and were following a very pleasant sort of ridge, from which they could see down into a sort of hollow for smiles and smiles, and, beyond the hollow, the buff-colored hills and mountains that formed the walls of the amphitheatre. There were not so many Gugollaph-trees as there were in the Garden and along the road to the Dimplesmithy, owing to the different topography of the country; instead, there were ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker

... the altar and pulpit were handsome, and though the windows were unstained, the light was mellowed by buff inside blinds. The seats were by no means filled, and the congregation was composed of people whose appearance denoted that many belonged to the labouring class, and none to the Brahmin caste of millionnaires, though all ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... old courtier, indeed," said the earl, "and the first of my family that could so write himself—my grey beard falls on a cambric ruff and a silken doublet—my father's descended upon a buff coat and a breast-plate. I would not that those days of battle returned; but I should love well to make the oaks of my old forest of Dalgarno ring once more with halloo, and horn, and hound, and to have the old stone- arched ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... could 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 and corner with ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann

... in the meadow, Or beneath the orchard's shadow, Keepest up a constant rattle Joyous as my children's prattle, Welcome to the North again, Welcome to mine ear thy strain, Welcome to mine eye the sight Of thy buff, thy black and white. Brighter plumes may greet the sun By the banks of Amazon; Sweeter tones may weave the spell Of enchanting Philomel; But the tropic bird would fail, And the English nightingale, If we should compare their worth With ...
— Bird Day; How to prepare for it • Charles Almanzo Babcock

... down Holborn Hill, towards Smithfield. He had on a scarlet coat worked in gold at the buttonholes, ruffles and frill of fine lace, a small white stock, no collar (they were not then invented), a looped hat with a broad black band, buff knee-breeches and long silk strings, striped white silk stockings, pumps and paste buckles; his waistcoat was pale blue satin, sprigged with white. It was impossible to look on his fine ample chest, ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle

... the floor. The bones of the structure are everywhere in evidence, and an element of its beauty, by reason of the admirably direct and logical arrangement of posts and trusses. The vertical walls are covered with plaster-board of a light buff color, converted into good sized panels by means of wooden strips finished with a thin grey stain. The structural wood work is stained in similar fashion, the iron rods, straps, and bolts being painted black. This color scheme is completed and a ...
— Architecture and Democracy • Claude Fayette Bragdon

... a pale, oblong little face, that looked younger under its softening "bang" of fair curls across the forehead. She was a buff-and-gray-colored creature, with a narrow square chin and narrow square shoulders, and a flatness and straightness about her everywhere that gave her rather the effect of a wedge, to which the big black straw hat she wore tilted a little on one side somehow conduced. ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)

... a pale 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, it avoids a certain "new" effect which pure white would give, ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber

... Fanny retired into the garden to gather her parent some flowers; but immediately returned shrieking. She was followed by a Highwayman with a cocked hat, mustachios, bandit's ringlets, a scarlet hunting-coat, and buff boots. This gentleman had shown his extraordinary politeness—although a perfect stranger—by giving Miss Fanny a kiss in the garden; conduct for which the Curate very properly cursed him, in the strongest language. Apparently ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins

... certainly the most growing, years of his life. They gave birth to "Goetz von Berlichingen" and the "Sorrows of Werther," to the first inception of "Faust," and to many of his sweetest lyrics. It was during this period that he made the acquaintance of Charlotte Buff, the heroine of the "Sorrows of Werther," from whom he finally tore himself away, leaving Wetzlar when he discovered that their growing interest in each other was endangering her relation with Kestner, her betrothed. In those years, also, he formed a matrimonial engagement with ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord

... clairvoyance, this was not very satisfactory. She read the inscription on a card when her eyes were bandaged, pressing it to her forehead; but then olden experiences in the way of blindman's buff convince me that it is very difficult to say when a person ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies

... Boehmen"; said this and that; much disinclined to homage; and would not do it. Stiff, surly fellows, much deficient in discernment of what is above them and what is not: a thick-skinned set; bodies clad in buff leather; minds also cased in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various

... I cast loose my buff-coat, each holster let fall, Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all, Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear, Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse without peer; Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad or good, Till at length ...
— Voices for the Speechless • Abraham Firth

... Gird-the-mear, a full half-mile distant. The last syllable, bog, is obviously, therefore, a mere corruption of the Saxon Burgh, which we find in the various transmutations of Burgh, Burrow, Brough, Bruff, Buff, and Boff, which last approaches very near the sound in questionsince, supposing the word to have been originally borgh, which is the genuine Saxon spelling, a slight change, such as modern organs too often make upon ancient sounds, will produce first ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... world! How can I object to a stepmother who is playing Blind Man's Buff at the present moment with the Norwegian nobility? I am not so overstrained as all that. But really I cannot allow my old friend HIALMAR, with his great, confiding, childlike mind, to remain in contented ignorance of GINA's past. No, I see my mission in life at last! I ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, May 23, 1891 • Various

... be more ashamed to rise; and so you'll say, dear heart, if you look upon my clothes: the best is, my buff-coat will ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott

... Buff! The Irish soldier's fist caught Mock squarely on the jaw, sending him squarely to earth, though not knocking him out. After a moment Mock was on his feet again, quivering with rage. He flew at Riley, who was a smaller man, hammering him hard. Other soldier-prisoners interfered on behalf ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock

... excellent marksmen. Their horses, arms, and appointments were purchased at their own expense, and they were expected to hold them selves in readiness to assemble whenever their services might be required by the governor. For uniform, they wore a blue coat with white buttons, and buff waistcoat and breeches. Their parade was the Square or Market-place, where they were attended by music, and visited by all the beauty of the place, who animated them by their smiles from the balcony of the town-hall, ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins

... prime, but not without ideas and force. He had for many years been a department subordinate at Washington; but, having accumulated some money, he had donned what was then known as senatorial costume— namely, a blue swallow-tailed coat, and a buff vest, with brass buttons—and coming to this little Michigan town he had established a Whig paper, which afterward became Republican. He was generally credited, no doubt justly, with a determination to push himself into the ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White

... is all very well for him—plotting plots from the top of the Forrester Building—but it makes it difficult for any one down here inside the firing-line. If your father isn't more careful," he protested warmly, "Alvarez will stand us blindfolded against a wall, and we'll play blind man's buff ...
— The White Mice • Richard Harding Davis

... surprised at its transformation. Fresh curtains, new paper, cozy window seats, and bright cushions have made a vast difference. Then I tackled the kindergarten, and the result is about the prettiest thing in Japan. The room is painted white with buff walls and soft muslin curtains, the only decoration being a hundred blessed babies, in gay little kimonas, who look like big bunches of flowers placed in a wreath upon ...
— Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little

... South might have seen and known that the one hope of the institution of slavery lay in the Union. However it ended, disunion led to abolition. The world—the whole trend of modern thought—was set against slavery. But politics, based on party feeling, is a game of blindman's buff. And then—here I show myself a son of Scotland—there is a destiny. "What is to be," says the predestinarian Mother Goose, "will be, though ...
— Marse Henry, Complete - An Autobiography • Henry Watterson

... Jane's castle. It was rather large, and had an enormous round tower at each corner—a thing which brought to Peter's mind the picture of an elephant lying on its back. Peter and Aunt Jane, accompanied by a train of servants dressed in blue-and-buff livery, walked into the castle ...
— The Firelight Fairy Book • Henry Beston

... reached London late that night; and here Mr. Romaine took leave of us. Business waited for him at Amersham Place. After a few hours' sleep, Rowley woke me to choose between two post-boys in blue jackets and white hats, and two in buff jackets and black hats, who were competing for the honour of conveying us as far as Barnet: and having decided in favour of the blue and white, and solaced the buff and black with a pourboire, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... cattleyas; and the life of Odette at all other times, since he knew nothing of it, appeared to him upon a neutral and colourless background, like those sheets of sketches by Watteau upon which one sees, here and there, in every corner and in all directions, traced in three colours upon the buff paper, innumerable smiles. But, once in a while, illuminating a chink of that existence which Swann still saw as a complete blank, even if his mind assured him that it was not so, because he was unable to imagine anything that might occupy it, some friend who knew them both, and ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust

... be always at the circumference of appearances. He must envelop himself in a halo of mystery—he must ride in an equipage of opinion—he must walk with a train of self-conceit following him—he must not strip himself to a buff-jerkin, to the doublet and hose of his real merits, but must surround himself with a cortege of prejudices, like the signs of the Zodiac—he must seem any thing but what he is, and then he may pass for any thing he pleases. The world love to be amused ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin

... his kind the German had stolidly swallowed the remarks about his big head, and its shock of stubby hair, and his checked buff trousers; but at reference to his native country his little blue eyes snapped, and he made a remark that this river was ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey

... races. Their rugged 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 ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown

... by his curiosity got the better of him, and he flitted to the top of a brush heap and peeped out at me surreptitiously. My glass was upon him in a moment, revealing his whitish throat and mottled chest washed with buff, the latter being his characteristic marking. A few days later he was singing in a small apple tree by my neighbor's fence. I stole as close to him as I could and peered at him through my binocular, while he returned the compliment by peering ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser

... occasion with a wardrobe for the purpose. Brummell's dress was finished with perfect skill, but without the slightest attempt at exaggeration. Plain Hessian boots and pantaloons, or top boots and buckskins, which were then more the fashion than they are now; a blue coat, and a buff coloured waistcoat—for he somewhat leaned to Foxite politics for form's-sake, however he despised all politics as unworthy of a man born to give the tone to fashion—was his morning dress. In the evening, he appeared in a blue coat and white waistcoat, black pantaloons closely ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various

... streets! That a body of men could be got together to kill other men when you bade them; this, a priori, does it not seem one of the impossiblest things? Yet look—behold it; in the stolidest of do-nothing Governments, that impossibility is a thing done. See it there, with buff-belts, red coats on its back; walking sentry at guard-houses, brushing white breeches in barracks; an indisputable, palpable fact. Out of grey antiquity, amid all finance-difficulties, scaccarium-tallies, ship-monies, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various

... to object, he now produced a small buff- leather bag, tied up carefully with a shoe-string. When this was opened, there appeared a very comfortable treasure of silver coins of all sorts and sizes; and I even fancied that I saw, gleaming among them, the golden ...
— The Seven Vagabonds (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... philosopher all games are either silly or reasonable; and nothing so reveals the stupid conventionality of the ordinary mind as the fact that men consider a series of handbooks on Great Bowlers to be a serious and important addition to literature, while they would hold that a little manual on Blind-man's Buff was a fit subject for derision. St. Paul said that when he became a man he put away childish things. He could hardly afford to say that now, if he hoped to be regarded as a man of sense ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson

... Bottle-green was a very stylish color for evening coats. Blue and the gilt buttons for street wear were, however, beginning to be discarded, Daniel Webster being one of the last to walk abroad in them. The buff waistcoat, white cambric cravat, and ruffled shirt still held their own. Collars for full dress were worn high, covering half the cheek, a fashion which persisted in parts of the country ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews

... over a year. The candles gave a soft light; there was a bowl of yellow flowers underneath them. Mrs. Oliver looked like an elderly Dresden-china shepherdess in her pale blue wrapper, and Polly did n't suffer from the brown gingham, with its wide collar and cuffs of buff embroidery, and its quaint full sleeves. She had burned two small blisters on her wrist: they were scarcely visible to the naked eye, but she succeeded in obtaining as much sympathy for them as if they had been mortal wounds. Her mother murmured 'Poor darling wrist' and 'kissed ...
— Polly Oliver's Problem • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

... while Simon made a feint of trying to beat Mother Dolly, Hal started forward and dealt a blow sufficient to make Simon cry out, 'Ha, well struck, sir, if you had had a better grip of your lance! I even feel it through my buff coat.' ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge

... 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 ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling

... tells ther truth, fer I hes seen him handle ther ribbons, and he does it prime too; he are the Pony Rider who they calls Buff'ler Billy," said another ...
— Beadle's Boy's Library of Sport, Story and Adventure, Vol. I, No. 1. - Adventures of Buffalo Bill from Boyhood to Manhood • Prentiss Ingraham

... described roughly. But this dispensation is another proof of Nature's kindly regard for the interests of our science. A clear, strong, golden yellow is the colour that would have been wanting in our cool houses had not the Oncidium supplied it. Shades of lemon and buff are frequent among Odontoglossums, but, in a rough, general way of speaking, they have a white ground. Masdevallias give us scarlet and orange and purple; Lycastes, green and dull yellow; Sophronitis, crimson; Mesospinidium, rose, and so forth. Blue must not be looked for. Even counting ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle

... Hardwicke. In fact, she had not thought of him at all except as a messenger. She was accustomed to take him for granted on any occasion. She had known him all her life, and he was always, in her eyes, the big friendly boy with whom she pulled crackers and played blindman's buff at children's parties. She dreamed of no possible romance with Henry, and did not imagine that he could have such a dream about her. He was as harmless as a brother, without a brother's right to question and criticise. It was precisely that feeling which had been at the root of the friendliness ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various

... Wertherism, of the former of which Scott was representative with us, have made and are still in some quarters making the tour of all Europe. In Germany, too, there was this affectionate, half-regretful looking-back into the past: Germany had its buff-belted, watch-tower period in literature, and had even got done ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers

... Hurstwood stood before a dirty four story building in a side street quite near the Bowery, whose one-time coat of buff had been changed by soot and rain. He mingled with a crowd of men—a crowd which had been, and was ...
— Sister Carrie • Theodore Dreiser

... morning. The soldiers were drawn up in the road, and men and women and children who had come to look at Washington were crowded all about. They saw a tall, splendid, handsome man in a blue coat with buff facings, and epaulets on his shoulders. As he took off his hat, drew his shining sword, and raised it in sight of all the people, the cannon began to thunder, and all the people hurrahed and tossed their hats in ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various

... had four high, bare windows through which the afternoon sunshine streamed on the carpet. The carpet had a pattern of pink peonies on a delicate buff ground, and was shamefully dirty. And the vast apartment, with its white paint and gilding and Italian sketches in water-colour and statuettes under glass, might have been a lady's drawing-room. But paint and gilding were tarnished; the chintz chair-covers soiled ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... not portrait or relics that made the room remarkable, but the tiles, each a portrait of a Revolutionary hero. Laurens, Marion, Lafayette, Pulaski, von Steuben—there they were in buff and blue, martial, in cocked hats, and with such awe-inspiring noses! The center and largest tile was, of course, the Father of his Country, without the hat, but with the nose, and above him the original flag, with the thirteen stars for the thirteen ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler

... if he gave me any Thing, I told him he did not, he said he was very sorry he did not; then I ask'd him who it was, and he said it was Robbin, and then he told me that he thought Robbin & he had been playing blind-mans Buff, for they had been over the Ferry twice that night and mist one another; and that Elijh Phipps & Timo Rand told him that a negro Fellow had been over the Ferry to speak with him about his Child. And then Mark told me he would the next Night go over to Robbin and get some more of ...
— The Trial and Execution, for Petit Treason, of Mark and Phillis, Slaves of Capt. John Codman • Abner Cheney Goodell, Jr.

... troop was Captain Bludder, a huge Alsatian bully, with fiercely-twisted moustachios, and fiery-red beard cut like a spade. He wore a steeple-crowned hat with a brooch in it, a buff jerkin and boots, and a sword and buckler dangled from his waist. Besides these, he had a couple of petronels stuck in his girdle. The captain drank like a fish, and swaggered and swore ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 1 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth

... 1 Buff'd it, or peeled in prime twig—Stripped to the skin in good order. The expressions are well known, and frequently in use, among the sporting characters ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan

... sweet to sit by Beauty's side Beneath the hawthorn shade; But Beauty is more beautiful In green and buff array'd. More radiant are her laughing eyes, Her cheeks of ruddier glow, As, hoping for the envied prize, She twangs the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 184, May 7, 1853 • Various

... at that and enjoy it," and she pointed to the child standing knee-deep in graceful ferns, looking as if she grew there, a living buttercup, with her buff frock off at one plump shoulder and her bright hair shining in ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott

... at hand to do what I can for him. The man who desires to be rid of an evil knows what he wants; but the man who desires something better than he has got is stone blind. Yes, yes, laugh as you will, he is playing blindman's-buff; perhaps he gets hold of something, but the question is what he has got hold of. Do as you will, it is all one. Invite your friends to you, or let them be, it is all the same. The most prudent plans I have seen miscarry, and the most foolish succeed. Don't split your brains about it; ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... the principal are the saloon, dining-room, breakfast-room, library, and chapel. The ceilings are finely worked into compartments with escutcheons and pendants. The walls of the saloon are covered with crimson silk, sprigged with yellow flowers; those of the dining-room, with pale buff, and white moldings, rich tracery and elegant compartmented ceiling. In the center of some of the arches you see the crescent, the crest ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various

... her taste for frivolous amusements, though unaffected, was only allowable in a girl about twelve or thirteen years old. A child, however, she was, in every other respect, except playing with a doll: blind man's buff was her most favourite amusement: she was building castles of cards, while the deepest play was going on in her apartments, where you saw her surrounded by eager courtiers, who handed her the cards, or young architects, who endeavoured ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... which were half-crowns—and a waistcoat, scarlet and black, the buttons of which were spaded half-guineas: his breeches were of a stuff half velveteen, half corduroy, the cords exceedingly broad. He had leggings of buff cloth, furred at the bottom; and upon his feet were highlows. Under his left arm was a long, black whalebone riding-whip, with a red lash, and an immense silver knob. Upon his head was a hat with a high peak, somewhat of the kind which the Spaniards ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... while the under side of its abdomen is of a rich bronze. The body is also flatter and less tapering, and the curve inclines upward, rather than downward. You perceive it would be the easiest thing in the world for the bee to sting an enemy perched upon its back. One variety, with a bright buff abdomen, is called "sweat-bee" by the laborers in the field, because it alights upon their hands and bare arms when they are sweaty,—doubtless in quest of salt. It builds its nest in little cavities in rails and posts. But the one with the bronze or ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... are fierce beasts, who have claws and teeth, and draw hunters into places where they are likely to tear their clothes on the thorns, if they wear silk and velvet, or even cloth and buff, but ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas

... short, heavy visor of unpolished leather shadowing the bridge of his nose; his dark blue jacket was shell-cut; over it he wore a slashed dolman trimmed at throat, wrists and edges with fur; his breeches were buff; his boots finished at the top with a yellow cord forming a heart-shaped knot in front; at his heels trailed the most dainty and rakish of sabres, light, graceful, curved almost ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers

... phenomena were quite genuine. And she began to understand more clearly, as the week wore on, why her son might have had a hard time of it with Palla Dumont before he returned to more familiar pastures, where camouflage and not candour was the rule in the gay and endless game of blind-man's buff. ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers

... began to move briskly, and there was much talk of the affair. As hostess, Rachael would not mask, nor would Warren, but they were already amusing themselves with the details of elaborate costumes. Warren's rather stern and classic beauty was to be enhanced by the blue and buff of an officer of the Revolution, fine ruffles falling at wrist and throat, wide silver buckles on square-toed shoes, and satin ribbon tying his white wig. Rachael, separately tempted by the thought of Dutch wooden shoes and of the always delightful hoop skirts, eventually abandoned ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris

... perceived in the males or in the ordinary form of females. These tailed females are never of the dark and blue-glossed tints which prevail in the male and often occur in the females of the same form, but are invariably ornamented with stripes and patches of white or buff, occupying the larger part of the surface of the hind wings. This peculiarity of colouring led me to discover that this extraordinary female closely resembles (when flying) another butterfly of the same genus but of a different group (Papilio cooen), and that we have ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... kindly select goods 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

... frantically for the police, my fingers touched nothing but the dripping fog, and the iron railings for which I sought seemed to have melted away. For many minutes I beat the mist with my arms like one at blind man's buff, turning sharply in circles, cursing aloud at my stupidity and crying continually for help. At last a voice answered me from the fog, and I found myself held in the circle ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis

... search of men; Books that, far from every 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

... Dog, and they called him buff, I sent him to the shop for a hap'orth of snuff; But he lost the bag and spilled the snuff. So take ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole

... there to meet me. The little depot was held by a strange night brigade of boys and girls, playing "blind-man's buff." They shouted like cannibals, and bore down on all opposing objects with resistless force. I did not attempt an entrance. A rough, good-natured looking man stood on the ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene

... to think of what the powdered footman may become when he unbends in the bosom of the family. When, in the privacy of his own apartments, the powder is washed off, the canary-seed pads removed from his aristocratic calves, and his scarlet and buff magnificence exchanged for a simple neglige, I should think he might be guilty of almost any indiscretion or violence. I for one would never consent to be the wife and children of a powdered footman, and receive him ...
— Penelope's English Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... shuts out much of the view, while his baggage, piled carefully amidships, and covered with oil cloths, encerrados as they are termed, is under the charge of his active boatman, who, stripped to the buff, with long pole in hand, expertly propels the boat up stream, with many a cry and strange exclamation. The river itself is a dark, muddy, and rapid stream; in some parts quite narrow, and again at other points ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont

... 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 ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe

... purchase many articles of clothing, for the dress of the people of Holland differed little from that of the English. Ned bought a thick buff jerkin to wear under his armour, and had little difficulty in buying steel cap, breast and back piece, sword and pistols; for the people of Holland had not as yet begun to arm generally, and many of the walls were defended by burghers in ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty

... the favors I will do you when I can. Tell them that I wouldn't have it, if it sacrificed their love, Tell them that I'm the same as ever, though they think me far above. Bunkie, I have dreamed so often of the buff that I shall wear, That I feel the honor greater than a man like me can bear. Long I've waited; long I've cherished thoughts of how I'd look and feel When the captain said: Howard, here's a stripe to aid your zeal. Then I'd be a non-com., bunkies, then I'd write ...
— Rhymes of the Rookies • W. E. Christian

... the window with Mr. Hope looking at a ring of company playing French blindman's-buff, we agreed we had never seen more beauty, male and female, collected in a ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth

... torn away part of the buff coat of General Deane, who had remained on board to aid his old comrade ...
— The Boy who sailed with Blake • W.H.G. Kingston

... go, too," said another young Swallow, springing away from his perch. He was a handsome fellow, with a glistening dark blue head and back, a long forked tail which showed a white stripe on the under side, a rich buff vest, and a deep blue collar, all of the finest feathers. He loved the young Swallow whom he was following, and he wanted to tell ...
— Among the Farmyard People • Clara Dillingham Pierson

... at blind-man's buff, And was the first to cry 'enough;' When nearly caught, who did not quake, Or laugh to see ...
— Harrison's Amusing Picture and Poetry Book • Unknown

... could see the pale buff-coloured magazine, on the table where, five minutes ago, Mamma had laid it down. She could see the black letters of its title and the squat column of the table of contents. The magazine with her poem ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair

... out more clearly against the endless blue sky than when those thousand boats rowed on to what 15,000 men thought certain victory. The procession of boats was wide enough to stretch from shore to shore; yet it was much longer than its width. On each side went the Americans, 9,000 men in blue and buff. In the centre came 6,000 British regulars in scarlet and gold, among them a thousand kilted Highlanders of the splendid 'Black Watch,' led by their major, Duncan Campbell of Inverawe, whose weird had told him a year before that he should fight ...
— The Passing of New France - A Chronicle of Montcalm • William Wood

... Ellis were to see and to marvel over the creamy buff envelopes which came to the Irishman, now thin, now thick, postmarked in Maine, often only two or three days apart, never less frequently than once a week. The boarding-house keeper had her own pleasant little note, occasionally, and Emma Ellis had three conscientious picture postcards, ...
— Jane Journeys On • Ruth Comfort Mitchell

... I was received by a body of footmen dressed in a livery of blue and buff, in which they looked wonderfully like American Revolutionary generals, only bedizened with far more lace and embroidery than those simple and grand old heroes ever dreamed of wearing. There were likewise ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various

... in the kindest way. Mrs. Clarke, bursting with fury, tried to say they were no relations of hers; but, of course, Aunt Maria could not catch all that, only the word "relations," and she then caught sight of the buff ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn

... the "second youth," the more her distrust increased. She affected to present herself in the most unfavorable light, and played her part so well that the last wooers hesitated to link their fate to that of a person whose virtuous blind-man's-buff required an amount of penetration that men who want the virtuous ready-made would not bestow upon it. The constant fear of being married for her money rendered her suspicious and uneasy beyond all reason. She turned to the rich men; but the rich are in search of great ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac

... execration; looking round with startled gaze in search of explanation, discover at corner-seat below Gangway a dapper figure uplifted on supernaturally high-heeled boots, with trousers tightly drawn to display proportions of limbs that would have made Sim Tappertit green with envy; a black frock coat, buff waistcoat, coloured tie, a high collar, a wizened countenance, just now wrinkled with spasmodic contortion, kindly meant ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, June 27, 1891 • Various

... this particular instance, I know you will excuse me, when I write of a spot in which you would delight. I wish, in the first place, to introduce you to MR. W.B. COOLEY, the perfect pink of landlords, wearing a polka cravat and a buff vest, externally; but he has a heart in his bosom as big as one of the Berkshire cattle. If you ever come here—and by you, I mean the 100,000 subscribers to the Lady's Book, don't go anywhere else, for here you will find a home—a regular New England home. ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various

... buff-coat, under which no doubt there would be a shirt of mail; his gorget and wristlets were of polished steel, and his headgear was a steel cap under a cover of peach-coloured velvet. Thigh-boots encased his legs; sword and dagger hung in the ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini

... years after the departure of Mr. David Faux for the West Indies, that the vacant shop in the market-place at Grimworth was understood to have been let to the stranger with a sallow complexion and a buff cravat, whose first appearance had caused some excitement in the bar of the Woolpack, where he had called to wait ...
— Brother Jacob • George Eliot

... 'n' show ye're game," said the convict, "thar won't no hurt come to ye. This here car's way-billed fer Buff'lo, 'n' I'm waitin' ter be took up now. It's a grain car. Yer ain't goin' ter peach wot I tell ye, now? I wuz put wise to it afore I come out by a railroad bloke. I had it straight these here cars would be picked up fer Buff'lo the nex' day after I done my ...
— Tom Slade at Temple Camp • Percy K. Fitzhugh

... forenoon consisted, in the main, of a perfect dear of a Norfolk jacket, all over plaits and pockets, with large leather buttons like oak-galls adhering thickly to it, with a belt high up under the arms and a saucy tail sticking out behind; knee-breeches; a high stock collar; shin-high leggings of buff or white, and a special hat—a truly adorable confection by ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb

... Mr Rogers; "but unless you can well choose your spot those shots of ours would do very little more than make a sore place under the creature's hide. He's like an old-fashioned man-at-arms in his buff jerkin." ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn

... people, was half a century of social experience. They had half a dozen seasons in every year. Still, it was hard work, and not rapid. At a certain point they stuck, as all do. Most people, then, give it up; but patience, Buff on tells us, is genius, and Mrs. Guy Flouncey was, in her way, a woman of genius. Their dinners were, in a certain sense, established: these in return brought them to a certain degree into the dinner world; but balls, at least balls of a high calibre, were few, and as for ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli

... 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 ...
— Chantecler - Play in Four Acts • Edmond Rostand

... also upon Van Wandenberg, who choking with a tempest of passion that was too great to find utterance in words, had gathered up his rotund figure, and with an agility wonderful in a man of his years and vast obesity, so heavily armed, in a buff coat and jack-boots ribbed with iron, a heavy sword and cloak, clambered on the back of his horse, as a clown would climb up a wall; and with a visage alternating between purple and blue, by the effects of rage and strangulation, he surveyed ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various

... tell Anty and give her her tonic. Barry had made himself quite a dandy to do honour to the occasion of paying probably a parting visit to his sister, whom he had driven out of her own house to die at the inn. He had on his new blue frock-coat, and a buff waistcoat with gilt buttons, over which his watch-chain was gracefully arranged. His pantaloons were strapped clown very tightly over his polished boots; a shining new silk hat was on one side of his head; and in his hand he was dangling an ebony cane. In spite, however, of all these gaudy trappings, ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope

... and cosy! In each was an open fireplace, with a tiny fire burning,—"just for looks," Susan explained. Each contained a pretty brass bedstead, a comfortable chair or two, and curtains and cushions of flowered chintz. Rita's chintz showed deep red poppies on a pale buff ground; Peggy's was blue, with buttercups and daisies scattered over it; while Margaret's—oh, Margaret's was not chintz after all, but old-fashioned white dimity, with a bewilderment of tufts, and ball-fringe, and tassels. ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards

... or of offspring weak or deformed. There were toys and games for children. Archytas, a philosopher, was said to have invented the child's rattle. Dolls, hoops, balls, etc., were common playthings. Boys and girls played hide and seek, blind man's buff, hunt the slipper, etc. Older people played ball, and gambled with dice. (6) Education. The education of boys was careful; that of girls was neglected. The boy went to or from school under the care of a slave, called pedagogue, or leader. Teachers were of different social grades, ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher

... 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 ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin

... which were attached the braid and loops of a heavy gilt aiguillette whose glistening pendants were hung temporarily on the upper button. On the seat of the chair was folded a broad soft sash of red silk net, its tassels carefully spread. Beside it lay a pair of long buff gauntlets, new and spotless. At the door, brilliantly polished, stood a pair of buttoned gaiter boots, the heels decorated with small glistening brass spurs. In the corner, close at hand, leaned a long curved sabre, its gold sword-knot, ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King

... abject fears on every threat of Mr. Fox, which he did, insomuch that Lord Apsley and myself were obliged to threaten him with a prosecution. On the hustings were posted a set of young men, neatly dressed in blue and buff for the occasion, blacklegs from all the race-courses, and all the Pharo and E.O. tables in town. Their business was to affront every gentleman who came on the hustings without their livery. "You lie!" "Who are you? damn you!" and a variety of such terms echoed in every quarter; ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos

... plague his brother, Just as one beauty mortifies another. But here's the captain that will plague them both, 260 Whose air cries, Arm! whose very look's an oath: The captain's honest, sirs, and that's enough, Though his soul's bullet, and his body buff. He spits fore-right; his haughty chest before, Like battering rams, beats open every door: And with a face as red, and as awry, As Herod's hangdogs in old tapestry, Scarecrow to boys, the breeding woman's curse, Has yet a strange ambition to look worse; ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al

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

... without a word, she handed me the buff form, and sat silently while I read the various ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 17, 1917 • Various



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