buffet

When you see the word buffet, it's hard not to think "all-you-can-eat." Although the noun can refer to food set out for self-service, buffet also means "a blow, especially with the hand," and as a verb "to strike sharply."

The two meanings of buffet come from very different sources. Buffet the self-serve meal is drawn from the piece of furniture on which such a meal might be served, a bufet "sideboard" in eighteenth-century French, and is pronounced buh-FAY. The meaning of hitting, however, comes from the Old French word bufe "a blow" or "a puff of wind" and is spoken BUH-fit. If the wind buffets the windows of your house, it can make them rattle in their frames, and if you are buffeted by bad news, you might shake in your shoes too.