Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a fool, also attrib.; thus buffle-headed adj., stupid.

1632		R. Brome Covent-Garden Weeded I i: I’le dismiss the Gallant, and send you, Sirrah, for another wench. I’le have Besse Bufflehead again. This kicksy wincy Giddibrain will spoil all.
1652		N. Culpeper Catastrophe magnatum 450: [W]ho were the authors of such a dissention think you, truly the buffle-headed Clergy.
1659		Greene & Lodge Lady Alimony I i: What a drolling bufflehead is thus.
1661		T. Bradley Appello Cæsarem 23: Henry Gooding a buffle-headed Baker in Henly upon Thames.
1668		Pepys Diary 29 Jan. n.p.: He tells me that Townsend, of the Wardrobe, is the veriest knave and bufflehead that ever he saw in his life.
1676		Wycherley Plain-Dealer II i: You know nothing, you Buffle-headed, stupid Creature you.
c.1687		‘Mac O Bonniclabbero of Drogheda’ Bog Witticisms XVII 15: Pox on you for a Couple of Buffle-headed Coxcombs.
1689		R. L’Estrange Erasmus Colloquies 232: Suppose any man should [...] call you Buffle-Head, what would you do?
1690		‘Teague’ Teagueland Jests I 69: Pox on you, for a pair of Buffle-headed Coxcombs.
1694		J. Eachard (trans.) Plautus’s Amphitryon IV iii: What makes ye stare so, Bufflehead?
1754		B. Martin Eng. Dict. (2nd edn) .
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: buffle-headed, confused, stupid.
1821		R. Waln Hermit in America on Visit to Phila. 2nd series 28: She was [...] Cribbage-faced—Beetle-headed—Bottle-headed—Buffle-headed,—and Chuckle-headed!!!
1833		Satirist (London) 5 May 13/2: ‘No, buffle-head,’ bellowed the Lord Mayor: ‘You’re wrong’.
1838		W. Holloway Dict. of Provincialisms 21/1: Buffle-Headed, Stupid.
c.1845		Dick and Sal 19: Yes: you shall pay, you trucklebed, You buffle-headed ass.
1850		E.V. Kenealy Goethe: a New Pantomime in Poetical Works 2 (1878) 335: Buffle-headed sophist. Gabbler.
1859, 1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1874		Yorke’s Peninsula Advertiser (SA) 15 May 4/1: Oh Jan. ez cum but bless my soal, / What ha t aw theer you bufflehead fool [text unclear].
1877		Wkly Times (Melbourne) 4 Aug. 13/4: That bragging, buffle-headed fellow, Master Gaunson, who, like the Coxcomb of Beaumont and Fletcher, ‘has surfeited of geese,’ objects to his critics.
1887		A. Quiller-Couch Dead Man’s Rock I 52: Fustly Jonathan’s a buffle-head [...] any man could see, let alone a daft fule like Jonathan.
1891		A. Day Mysterious Beggar 254: He ain’t no buffle head.
1933		N. Lindsay Saturdee 20: You clear outer this, Bufflehead Mufflehead; yer ain’t wanted, see?
1935		(ref. to 1870) Dundee Courier 6 Apr. 6/3: Have we lost the art of slang? [...] It did not pay to be stupid in those days [...] you had ‘apartments to let’ or [you were] chuckle-headed, buffle-headed, cabbage-headed [and] chowder-headed.
1968		Green Bay Press-Gaz. (WI) 9 Jan. A2/4: If your smasher of a bird catches you all mops and brooms [...] ‘Bufflehead,’ she may say [...] It’s English. Not the king’s brand, but a cross-section of the mod mood in London .