What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Lag vs Buffer - What's the difference?

lag | buffer |

As adjectives the difference between lag and buffer

is that lag is late while buffer is comparative of buff.

As nouns the difference between lag and buffer

is that lag is a gap, a delay; an interval created by something not keeping up; a latency while buffer is someone or something that buffs.

As verbs the difference between lag and buffer

is that lag is to fail to keep up (the pace), to fall behind while buffer is to use a buffer or buffers; to isolate or minimize the effects of one thing on another.

lag

English

Adjective

  • late
  • * 1592 , William Shakespeare, King Richard III
  • Some tardy cripple bore the countermand, / That came too lag to see him buried.
  • (obsolete) Last; long-delayed.
  • * Shakespeare
  • the lag end of my life
  • Last made; hence, made of refuse; inferior.
  • * Dryden
  • lag souls

    Noun

  • (countable) A gap, a delay; an interval created by something not keeping up; a latency.
  • * 2004 , May 10. The New Yorker Online,
  • During the Second World War, for instance, the Washington Senators had a starting rotation that included four knuckleball pitchers. But, still, I think that some of that was just a generational lag .
  • (uncountable) Delay; latency.
  • * 1999 , Loyd Case, Building the ultimate game PC
  • Whatever the symptom, lag is a drag. But what causes it? One cause is delays in getting the data from your PC to the game server.
  • * 2001 , Patricia M. Wallace, The psychology of the Internet
  • When the lag is low, 2 or 3 seconds perhaps, Internet chatters seem reasonably content.
  • * 2002 , Marty Cortinas, Clifford Colby, The Macintosh bible
  • Latency, or lag , is an unavoidable part of Internet gaming.
  • (British, slang, archaic) One sentenced to transportation for a crime.
  • (British, slang) a prisoner, a criminal.
  • * 1934 , , Thank You, Jeeves
  • On both these occasions I had ended up behind the bars, and you might suppose that an old lag like myself would have been getting used to it by now.
  • (snooker) A method of deciding which player shall start. Both players simultaneously strike a cue ball from the baulk line to hit the top cushion and rebound down the table; the player whose ball finishes closest to the baulk cushion wins.
  • One who lags; that which comes in last.
  • * Alexander Pope
  • the lag of all the flock
  • The fag-end; the rump; hence, the lowest class.
  • * Shakespeare
  • the common lag of people
  • A stave of a cask, drum, etc.; especially (engineering) one of the narrow boards or staves forming the covering of a cylindrical object, such as a boiler, or the cylinder of a carding machine or steam engine.
  • A bird, the greylag.
  • Usage notes

    In casual use, lag' and (latency) are used synonymously for “delay between initiating an action and the effect”, with '''lag''' more casual. In formal use, ''latency'' is the technical term, while ' lag is used when latency is greater than usual, particularly in internet gaming.

    Synonyms

    * (delay) latency

    Derived terms

    * time lag * jet lag * lagging jacket * lag screw

    Verb

    (lagg)
  • to fail to keep up (the pace), to fall behind
  • * 1596 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, Canto I
  • Behind her farre away a Dwarfe did lag , / That lasie seemd in being ever last, / Or wearied with bearing of her bag / Of needments at his backe.
  • * 1616 , George Chapman, The Odysseys of Homer
  • Lazy beast! / Why last art thou now? Thou hast never used / To lag thus hindmost
  • * 1717 , The Metamorphoses of Ovid translated into English verse under the direction of Sir Samuel Garth by John Dryden, Alexander Pope, Joseph Addison, William Congreve and other eminent hands
  • While he, whose tardy feet had lagg'd behind, / Was doom'd the sad reward of death to find.
  • * 1798 , Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner in seven parts
  • Brown skeletons of leaves that lag / My forest-brook along
  • * 2004 , — The New Yorker, 5 April 2004
  • Over the next fifty years, by most indicators dear to economists, the country remained the richest in the world. But by another set of numbers—longevity and income inequality—it began to lag behind Northern Europe and Japan.
  • to cover (for example, pipes) with felt strips or similar material
  • * c. 1974 , , The Building
  • Outside seems old enough: / Red brick, lagged pipes, and someone walking by it / Out to the car park, free.
  • (UK, slang, archaic) To transport as a punishment for crime.
  • * De Quincey
  • She lags us if we poach.
  • To cause to lag; to slacken.
  • * Heywood
  • To lag his flight.

    Derived terms

    * lagging * laggard

    See also

    * tardy

    Anagrams

    * * ----

    buffer

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • Someone or something that buffs.
  • (chemistry) A solution used to stabilize the pH (acidity) of a liquid.
  • (computing) A portion of memory set aside to store data, often before it is sent to an external device or as it is received from an external device.
  • (mechanical ) Anything used to maintain slack or isolate different objects.
  • (telecommunications) 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.
  • (rail) A device on trains and carriages designed to cushion the impact between them.
  • (rail) The metal barrier to help prevent trains from running off the end of the track.
  • An isolating circuit, often an amplifier, used to minimize the influence of a driven circuit on the driving circuit.
  • (politics, international relations) A buffer zone (such as a demilitarized zone) or a buffer state.
  • (colloquial) A good-humoured, slow-witted fellow, usually an elderly man.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1864-1865
  • , author=Charles Dickens , title=Our Mutual Friend , chapter=Book The First, chapter 2 "The Man from Somewhere" citation , passage=Lastly, the looking-glass reflects Boots and Brewer, and two other stuffed Buffers interposed between the rest of the company and possible accidents.}}
  • * {{quote-book, year=1864-1865
  • , author=Charles Dickens , title=Our Mutual Friend , chapter=Book The First, chapter 10 "A Marriage Contract" citation , passage=Here, too, are Boots and Brewer, and the two other Buffers; each Buffer with a flower in his button-hole, his hair curled, and his gloves buttoned on tight, apparently come prepared, if anything had happened to the bridegroom, to be married instantly.}}
  • (figurative) A gap that isolates or separates two things.
  • * {{quote-news, year=2011
  • , date=November 10 , author=Jeremy Wilson , title=England Under 21 5 Iceland Under 21 0: match report , work=Telegraph citation , page= , passage=An utterly emphatic 5-0 victory was ultimately capped by two wonder strikes in the last two minutes from Aston Villa midfielder Gary Gardner. Before that, England had utterly dominated to take another purposeful stride towards the 2013 European Championship in Israel. They have already established a five-point buffer at the top of Group Eight. }}

    Derived terms

    * direct buffer * non-direct buffer

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To use a buffer or buffers; to isolate or minimize the effects of one thing on another.
  • (computing) To store data in memory temporarily.
  • Adjective

    (head)
  • (buff)
  • Anagrams

    * ----