What's the difference between bluff and buff?

Bluff


Definition:

  • (a.) Having a broad, flattened front; as, the bluff bows of a ship.
  • (a.) Rising steeply with a flat or rounded front.
  • (a.) Surly; churlish; gruff; rough.
  • (a.) Abrupt; roughly frank; unceremonious; blunt; brusque; as, a bluff answer; a bluff manner of talking; a bluff sea captain.
  • (n.) A high, steep bank, as by a river or the sea, or beside a ravine or plain; a cliff with a broad face.
  • (n.) An act of bluffing; an expression of self-confidence for the purpose of intimidation; braggadocio; as, that is only bluff, or a bluff.
  • (n.) A game at cards; poker.
  • (v. t.) To deter (an opponent) from taking the risk of betting on his hand of cards, as the bluffer does by betting heavily on his own hand although it may be of less value.
  • (v. t.) To frighten or deter from accomplishing a purpose by making a show of confidence in one's strength or resources; as, he bluffed me off.
  • (v. i.) To act as in the game of bluff.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) I want to follow the west bank of the river south for some 100 miles to a bluff overlooking the river, where Sitting Bull is buried – and then, in the evening, to return to Bismarck.
  • (2) Despite huge uncertainties over their ability to pay for carbon capture and storage technology, [Peel subsidiary] Ayrshire Power has decided to go ahead with these plans and call Labour's bluff.
  • (3) Suppose western leaders called Russia’s bluff and insisted on a no-fly zone over Aleppo and a safe haven in northern Syria for refugees.
  • (4) Salmond accused the Westminster parties of a combination of bullying and bluff.
  • (5) On August 2, 1991, a neurologist in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) in central Arkansas notified the Arkansas Department of Health of two patients hospitalized with St. Louis encephalitis (SLE).
  • (6) The impending publication of the putative nude pictures, a humiliation that turned out to be a bluff, might have pulled Watson down among the lower orders of former child stars, those people who now exist in the public consciousness merely as cautionary tales to scare naughty teenagers: “Look what happened to Bieber today!”; “Did you see Cyrus in that outfit?” Although Watson has put her head above the parapet before, the provocation cited by the hoaxers was the New York speech she gave last Monday promoting the HeForShe campaign and arguing that gender discrimination harms both men and women.
  • (7) This bombshell will weaken supreme leader Ali Khamenei, Ahmadinejad, chief negotiator Saeed Jalili, and the rest of Tehran's hardliner crew abroad and at home although, as usual, they will try to bluff their way through.
  • (8) Peggy was – I think (please correct me if not) – watching NBC’s Coogan’s Bluff knock-off McCloud which began in early 1970.
  • (9) Cameron added that recent warnings from banks such as Lloyds and RBS, and from firms such as BP and Shell proved that the economic and financial risks of independence were not bluff and bluster or bullying.
  • (10) A steady rise in the yes vote in recent opinion polls also established that voters did not buy "the bluff and bluster" of those opposed to independence.
  • (11) These places had their bluff called by the Occupy movement.
  • (12) The Zappa statue was audaciously suggested by local artists in 1992, as a slightly flippant test of their country's newfound democratic freedoms; to their surprise, the authorities called their bluff.
  • (13) Most of the sites are of the Bluff phase of Late Woodland in the lower Illinois River valley; others are from a nearby, contemporary archaeological phase.
  • (14) TV election debates: broadcasters call David Cameron's bluff Read more “They’ve chopped and changed formats, blinked under pressure, refused to consult constructively and now are absurdly threatening not to have the prime minister present.
  • (15) At that point the ECB’s hand may be looking quite poor – if the market doesn’t call their bluff first.
  • (16) Amid claims in the markets that politicians in Athens were playing a dangerous game of bluff, a potential schism in the monetary union saw borrowing costs for Spain and Italy rise over fears that contagion could spread from Greece through southern Europe.
  • (17) With the crisis and the payments protection insurance scandals combining to leave the financial services sector mistrusted as never before, there has never been a more opportune moment for calling the industry's bluff.
  • (18) This time, however, Scotland is calling the cardinal's bluff.
  • (19) Coren was author of more than 20 satirical books, a familiar face on television from the 1970s onwards - he was team captain on Call my Bluff - and a regular on Radio 4's News Quiz from 1975.
  • (20) During a career spanning three decades, she has been a regular on shows such as Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Call My Bluff, and QI, as well as fronting the travel programme Excess Baggage.

Buff


Definition:

  • (n.) A sort of leather, prepared from the skin of the buffalo, dressed with oil, like chamois; also, the skins of oxen, elks, and other animals, dressed in like manner.
  • (n.) The color of buff; a light yellow, shading toward pink, gray, or brown.
  • (n.) A military coat, made of buff leather.
  • (n.) The grayish viscid substance constituting the buffy coat. See Buffy coat, under Buffy, a.
  • (a.) A wheel covered with buff leather, and used in polishing cutlery, spoons, etc.
  • (a.) The bare skin; as, to strip to the buff.
  • (a.) Made of buff leather.
  • (a.) Of the color of buff.
  • (v. t.) To polish with a buff. See Buff, n., 5.
  • (v. t.) To strike.
  • (n.) A buffet; a blow; -- obsolete except in the phrase "Blindman's buff."
  • (a.) Firm; sturdy.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Some offer a range, depending on whether you think you're a bit of a buff, and know a pinot meunier from a pinot noir and what prestige cuvée actually means or you just want to see a bit of the process and have a nice glass of bubbly at the end of it, before moving on to the next place – touring a pretty corner of France getting slowly, and delightfully, fizzled.
  • (2) Like, I am well, well equipped for this thing.” For their one survival item each, Rogen brought a role of toilet paper, while Franco brought sunglasses and mugs continually for the camera, giving his best Spring Breakers faces while in the buff.
  • (3) Most train yards have a washer system, which we call the "buff", that takes about 10 minutes to clean the whole train, and that's it – it goes back into service.
  • (4) In vitro autoradiography was used to compare the D-1 and D-2 receptor densities in brains from Buffalo (BUFF) and Fischer 344 (F344) rats.
  • (5) On Tuesday a piece called Art Buff appeared on a wall in Folkestone, Kent – another part of Britain where immigration is high on the political agenda.
  • (6) Former BBC 6 Music presenter Phill Jupitus said his departure was "something that, as a lover of music and radio buff, I had always hoped would never happen" .
  • (7) T. buffeli and T. orientalis also represented immunodominant antigens.
  • (8) In the past decade he has become known as the buff, handsome actor able to genre-jump: he has done comedies (Just Friends, Van Wilder: Party Liaison), horror (The Amityville Horror remake, which is memorable to his fans mostly because it featured Reynolds chopping wood topless), action thrillers (Blade: Trinity) and, in 2009, his breakout romcom The Proposal, in which he starred opposite Sandra Bullock.
  • (9) The present study suggests that T. sergenti should be separated from T. buffeli and T. orientalis on the basis of their serological dissimilarities.
  • (10) Its Genes Reunited site takes a much more mass-market approach than Find My Past, which is used by more "hardcore" genealogy buffs.
  • (11) It remains the achievement with which he is most often linked, except perhaps by movie buffs who admire the films that have preoccupied him over the past couple of decades: La Reine Margot , Intimacy , Gabrielle , Son Frère , Persécution , Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train .
  • (12) Elastase and buff-treated lobes were inflated cyclically with humidified air to a pressure of 20 cm H2O 6 times per min during a 16-hour period.
  • (13) Meanwhile, Dom (no relation) starts planning his own venture, a piri-piri chicken restaurant (drool), then goes cruising in a bath house where he meets Scott Bakula – hot off his Emmy-nominated performance in HBO's Liberace biopic, Behind the Candelabra , and looking unfeasibly buff for a 59-year-old.
  • (14) Differences in veil constituents were found between T. sergenti, T. buffeli and T. orientalis.
  • (15) His father, Kim Jong-il , was a well-known movie buff who ordered the abduction of the South Korean director Shin Sang-ok in 1987.
  • (16) It was these roles that gave him a serious cachet among a generation of film buffs who became movie makers, such as David Zucker, who cast him in the comedy spoof Top Secret!
  • (17) The direct migration inhibition test with peripheral buff-coated leukocytes, is an easy and reliable correlate of delayed hypersensitivity to mycobacterial antigens in the human body.
  • (18) The news will come as no surprise to film buffs who for years have been playing the parlour game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, in which they link other actors to Bacon in six films or fewer.
  • (19) If he wants a seven-foot picture of a woman feeding a giraffe in the buff, he's probably going to get one.
  • (20) Test resin was allowed to polymerize, and then buff polished or treated by surface smoothing.