Forms: 5 bofet, Sc. buffate, 5–7 buffit, 5–8 buffett, 6 boffett, buffat, buffote, buffed, 8– buffet. [Of unknown origin. Usually assumed to be the same word as the next, and therefore to be a. F. buffet; but the F. word has not this meaning, nor is there any known connection of sense in Eng.]
1. A low stool; a footstool. Now only Sc. and north. dial. In the 15th c. described as a three-legged stool, but now denoting in north of England a low stool of any kind, and in Sc. a four-footed stool ‘with sides, in form of a square table with leaves, when these are folded down’ (Jamieson). The fuller buffet-stool occurs in the same sense from the 15th c. Also buffet-form.
1432. E. E. Wills (1882), 91. I bequethe … Idary a bofet.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 41. Bofet, thre fotyd stole [1499 boffet stole], tripes. Ibid., 55. Buffet stole, scabellum, tripos.
1478. Act. Audit., 67 (Jam.). Ii buffate stulis.
1568. Wills & Inv. (1860), I. 282, in Promp. Parv., 42. 3 Buffett formes 3s., one litle buffet stole, 6d.
1596. Lanc. Wills (1861), III. 2. Ij buffet-stooles couered for women.
1611. Cotgr., Scabeau, a Buffit, or ioyned, stoole to sit on.
a. 1806. A. Douglas, Poems, 96 (Jam.). Jean brought the buffet stool in-bye.
Nursery Rhyme. Little Miss Muffet sat on a buffet, Eating her curds and whey.
2. A hassock. Chiefly dial.
1877. E. Peacock, N. W. Lincolnsh. Gloss. (E. D. S.), Buffet, a hassock. The difference between a Bass and a Buffet seems to consist in the former being covered with rush matting, and the latter with carpet.
1886. Demos, II. 267. A couple of buffets, kept here to supplement the number in the pew.
