- 1 a meal at which people serve themselves from a table and then stand or sit somewhere else to eat a buffet lunch/supper Dinner will be a cold buffet, not a sit-down meal. a finger buffet (= food that you can eat with your hands, not with a knife and fork) Oxford Collocations Dictionary adjectivefree, all-you-can-eat, delicious, … verb + buffetserve, lay out buffet + nounbreakfast, dinner, lunch, … See full entry See related entries: Types of meal
- 2a place, for example in a train or bus station, where you can buy food and drinks to eat or drink there, or to take away Wordfindertrainaisle, buffet, carriage, connection, locomotive, luggage rack, platform, station, track, train Oxford Collocations Dictionary adjectivestation buffet + nouncar, service See full entry See related entries: Types of restaurant
- 3(British English) = buffet car Oxford Collocations Dictionary adjectivestation buffet + nouncar, service See full entry
- 4 (especially North American English) = sideboard Word Originearly 18th cent. (denoting a sideboard): from French, from Old French bufet ‘stool’, of unknown origin.Extra examples A finger buffet will be served. Breakfast is served buffet style. The running buffet is available from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m.
buffet1
nounBrE BrE//ˈbʊfeɪ//, BrE//ˈbʌfeɪ//; NAmE NAmE//bəˈfeɪ//
Types of restaurant, Types of mealCheck pronunciation: buffet
