BUFFET (French buffet), was anciently a little apartment for holding china, glass-ware, &c, erected on one side
of a room, from which it was separated by slender wooden columns. It is now very generally superseded by the side-board. In the houses of persons of distinction in France, the buffet was a detached room, decorated with pictures relative to the subject, with fountains, cisterns, vases, &c.