burnish
Plural: burnishes
Noun
- the property of being smooth and shiny
- A shine of something which has been polished; a lustre, a polish.
- A shiny layer applied to a surface or other thing.
- The making of something bright, shiny, and smooth by, or (by extension) as if by, rubbing; (countable) an instance of this; a burnishing, a polishing, a shining.
Verb
Verb Forms: burnished, burnishing, burnishes
- To polish (metal or other material) by rubbing.
- polish and make shiny
- To make (something, such as a surface) bright, shiny, and smooth by, or (by extension) as if by, rubbing; to polish, to shine.
- Of a stag: to remove the velvet (“skin and fine fur”) from (its antlers) by rubbing them against something; to velvet.
- To make (someone or something) appear positive and highly respected.
- To become bright, glossy, and smooth; to brighten, to gleam, to shine forth.
- Of a person's body: to grow large or stout; to fatten, to fill out.
- Of a thing: to increase in size; to expand, to spread out, to swell.
Examples
- He needed to burnish his word game skills before the next Words With Friends tournament.
- In pottery, a stone is sometimes used to burnish a pot before firing, giving it a smooth, shiny look.
- With a good burnish, the old table should fetch a higher price.
Origin / Etymology
The verb is derived from Middle English burnishen, burnysshen (“to polish, burnish; (figuratively) to brighten, give lustre to; to clean (something) until shiny; to decorate (with something shiny), adorn”) [and other forms], from burniss-, a stem of Old French burnir (compare, for example, the first-person present singular indicative form burnis), a variant of brunir (“to make clean and shiny, polish; to make brown”) (modern French brunir), from Frankish *brūnijan (“to polish, make resplendent”), from Proto-Germanic *brūnijaną (“to decorate; tan”), from Proto-Germanic *brūnaz (“brown”, adjective), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerH- (“brown”, adjective). Doublet of brown and brunneous; unrelated to burn.
The noun is derived from the verb.
Scrabble Score: 12
burnish: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordburnish: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
burnish: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary