Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English homepage

Date: 1200-1300
Origin: buffet 'blow, hit' (13-21 centuries), from Old French, from buffe 'blow'

buffet

2 verb
     
buf‧fet2 [transitive usually passive]
1 if something, especially wind, rain, or the sea, buffets something, it hits it with a lot of force:
London was buffeted by storms last night.
2 literary to treat someone unkindly:
I was weary of being buffeted by life.
—buffeting noun [uncountable and countable]

buffet something about

phrasal verb
to move something in one direction and then another, again and again, with force:
The body was buffeted about in the waves.
Definition from the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
Advanced Learner's Dictionary.

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