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⏳ A loading pause 🛡️ Reducing impact ⚗️ Resisting pH change
buffering

buffering

1 3.4
A way of reducing the effect of harm or shock to protect people
  • noun
  • /ˈbʌfərɪŋ/
translation icon : amortiguación
  • Her kindness acts as a buffering effect against the stress caused by her busy job.
  • buffering effect
  • protective buffering
  • buffering model

And so one of the ways of buffering that is to bring the person in and to say, look, here's a bunch of things you're doing right and we don't have a global problem.

Examples

  • Good policies provide a buffering capability that allows communities to recover quickly from disasters.

  • For adolescents with SCD, support groups have been shown to have a buffering effect in times of acute pain (Telfair & Gardner, 1999).

    Academic text (2000)

  • Future research should explore whether such a buffering effect exists.

    Academic text (2014)

  • The buffering greatly diminishes the initial pain that is usually felt by the patient.

    Academic text (1999)

  • A traditional Korean belief system constituted a buffering system for the difficulties of their reality.

    Academic text (2016)

  • The stress-buffering effect of social network size and social support differed between Black and White subjects.

    Academic text (1991)

  • A volume of evidence supports the direct and buffering effects of social support on health (Cohen and Wills, 1985; Kessler and McLeod, 1985).

    Academic text (2001)

  • The buffering from the safety equipment helped protect the workers during the incident.

Synonyms

mitigation
vsbuffering
16 5.6

Action that reduces the harm or seriousness of something

focuses on absorbing or lessening impact itself to give relief rather than general reduction
cushioning
vsbuffering
4 3.0

Material that makes something soft and protects it from hard hits

is a general act reducing impact for protection rather than a physical material
shielding
vsbuffering
2 4.2

Act of protecting people or things from harm

uses absorption to reduce impact rather than solely forming a barrier

How Protective

shielding
2 4.2
buffering
1 3.4
cushioning
4 3.0

Surface Forms

buffering singular
bufferings plural

Morphology

buffering = buffer (transparent) = buffer + ing

Clear nominalization of the verb 'buffer' meaning to reduce or absorb impact, so the 'act of reducing or absorbing impact' sense follows directly.

Etymology

Buffering comes from the word buffer, originally a 'cushion' that 'softens a blow'. So when we say a program or thick wall gives 'buffering', we mean it acts like a protective 'cushion' that reduces harm, noise, or stress.