Emily Dickinson Lexicon

BUFF'ET, n. [Fr. buffet; It. buffetto; Sp. bufete.]

A cupboard, or set of shelves for plates, glass, china, and other like furniture. It was formerly, and is still in some parts of the country, an apartment erected on one side of a room; but in more fashionable houses it has been laid aside, and a sideboard substituted, which is now considered as the buffet. But as far as my knowledge extends, the name has become, in a great measure, obsolete, except among the common people, by whom it is pronounced bofat.