buff vs tawny

buff

noun
  • A brownish yellow colour. 

  • Any substance used to dilute (street) drugs in order to increase profits. 

  • Undyed leather from the skin of buffalo or similar animals. 

  • A military coat made of buff leather. 

  • A buffalo, or the meat of a buffalo. 

  • The greyish viscid substance constituting the buffy coat. 

  • Compressive coupler force that occurs during a slack bunched condition. 

  • A tool, often one covered with buff leather, used for polishing. 

  • A person who is very interested in a particular subject. 

  • An effect that makes a character or item stronger. 

  • The bare skin. 

adj
  • Of the color of buff leather, a brownish yellow. 

  • Physically attractive. 

  • Unusually muscular. 

verb
  • To strike. 

  • To polish and make shiny by rubbing. 

  • To make a character or an item stronger. 

  • To modify a medical chart, especially in a dishonest manner. 

tawny

noun
  • A light brown to brownish orange colour. 

  • Synonym of tenné (“a rarely-used tincture of orange or bright brown”) 

  • In full tawny port: a sweet, fortified port wine which is blended and matured in wooden casks. 

  • Tawny owl. 

  • Tawny frogmouth. 

  • The common bullfinch or Eurasian bullfinch (Pyrrhula pyrrhula). 

  • Something of a light brown or brownish orange colour (particularly if it has the word tawny in its name). 

adj
  • Of a light brown to brownish orange colour. 

verb
  • To become a light brown to brownish orange colour; to tan, to tawn. 

  • To cause (someone or something) to have a light brown to brownish orange colour; to tan, to tawn. 

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