Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

Simplified parse tree S = sentence
NP = noun phrase
RC = relative clause
VP = verb phrase
PN = proper noun
N = noun
V = verb
City of Buffalo, New York
American bison, colloquially referred to as buffalo

"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo" is a grammatically correct sentence in English that is often presented as an example of how homonyms and homophones can be used to create complicated linguistic constructs through lexical ambiguity. It has been discussed in literature in various forms since 1967, when it appeared in Dmitri Borgmann's Beyond Language: Adventures in Word and Thought.

The sentence employs three distinct meanings of the word buffalo:

A semantically equivalent form preserving the original word order is: "Buffalonian bison that other Buffalonian bison bully also bully Buffalonian bison."

  1. ^ "buffalo (verb) in American English". Macmillan Dictionary. Retrieved 29 May 2021.
  2. ^ Oxford University Press. "Definition of buffalo". Lexico. Archived from the original on 2 June 2021. Retrieved 29 May 2021.