buffet

What it means

1. A counter or sideboard from which food and drinks are served or may be bought.

   They stayed together during three dances, went out on to the terrace, explored wherever they were permitted to explore, paid two visits to the buffet, and enjoyed themselves much in the same way as if they had been school-children surreptitiously breaking loose from an assembly of grown-ups.

   1909 September 9, Archibald Marshall [pseudonym; Arthur Hammond Marshall], “A Court Ball”, in The Squire’s Daughter, London: Methuen & Co. […], →OCLC, page 9

   Synonyms: sideboard, smorgasbord, cupboard

2. Food laid out in this way, for diners to serve themselves.

   We'll be serving supper buffet style.

   1 more example

   "We got a big buffet coming up soon. Bacon, eggs, fresh fruit you wouldn't believe."

   1992, Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash, page 312

   Synonyms: buffet meal, smorgasbord

3. A small low stool; a hassock.

In a sentence

They stayed together during three dances, went out on to the terrace, explored wherever they were permitted to explore, paid two visits to the buffet, and enjoyed themselves much in the same way as if they had been school-children surreptitiously breaking loose from an assembly of grown-ups.

1909 September 9, Archibald Marshall [pseudonym; Arthur Hammond Marshall], “A Court Ball”, in The Squire’s Daughter, London: Methuen & Co. […], →OCLC, page 9

Where it comes from

1. Old Frenchbuffet
2. Middle Frenchbuffet“side table”
3. Middle Englishbuffet“stool”
4. Englishbuffet

Inherited from Middle English buffet (“stool”), from Middle French buffet (“side table”), from Old French buffet, of unknown origin. The modern pronunciation is remodelled after modern French buffet.