buffer vs bulwark

buffer

noun
  • The chief boatswain's mate. 

  • The metal barrier to help prevent trains from running off the end of the track. 

  • A gap that isolates or separates two things. 

  • A machine with rotary brushes, passed over a hard floor to clean it. 

  • An isolating circuit, often an amplifier, used to minimize the influence of a driven circuit on the driving circuit. 

  • A machine for polishing shoes and boots. 

  • A good-humoured, slow-witted fellow, usually an elderly man. 

  • A routine or storage medium used to compensate for a difference in rate of flow of data, or time of occurrence of events, when transferring data from one device to another. 

  • A portion of memory set aside to temporarily store data, often before it is sent to an external device or as it is received from an external device. 

  • A solution used to stabilize the pH (acidity) of a liquid. 

  • Anything used to maintain slack or isolate different objects. 

  • A buffer zone (such as a demilitarized zone) or a buffer state. 

  • A device on trains and carriages designed to cushion the impact between them. 

verb
  • To use a buffer or buffers; to isolate or minimize the effects of one thing on another. 

  • To maintain the acidity of a solution near a chosen value by adding an acid or a base. 

  • To store data in memory temporarily. 

bulwark

noun
  • The planking or plating along the sides of a nautical vessel above her gunwale that reduces the likelihood of seas washing over the gunwales and people being washed overboard. 

  • A defensive wall or rampart. 

  • A defense or safeguard. 

  • A breakwater. 

  • Any means of defence or security. 

verb
  • To fortify something with a wall or rampart. 

  • To provide protection of defense for something. 

How often have the words buffer and bulwark occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )