antedating: buffer

[Jonathan Lighter]

OED has this (_Naut_. A chief boatswain's mate. Also, a petty officer.) from
1864.  Much earlier:

ca1765-1795 _The Jolly Sailor's True Description of a Man of War_
(broadside) in C. H. Firth, ed. _Naval Songs and Ballads_ (
[London:] The Navy Records Society, 1908)  236: While the buffers stand with
their rattans,/ Crying 'Keep down out of the gangway.'


JL
--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org