burnish

UK/ˈbɜːnɪʃ/US/ˈbɝnɪʃ/

verbC1Very rare — outside the 30,000 commonest English words, so you will meet it in writing rather than in speechneutral

Other forms: burnished, burnishing

To burnish is to polish metal until it shines. Burnish the brass, a burnished shield, burnish his reputation.

It works by rubbing the surface smooth rather than by removing material, which is why a burnished finish is harder than a polished one. The figurative use, burnishing a reputation, means improving it deliberately.

Definitions of burnish

1verbburnishTo polish metal until it shines.C1
“The butler burnished the silver candlesticks until they gleamed.”

burnish is a polishing.

Where it comes from

Old French burnir means to make brown or bright, from brun, brown.

Proto-Indo-European
*bʰerH-
Proto-Germanic
*brūnijaną — to decorate; tan
Frankish
*brūnijan — to polish, make resplendent
Old French
burnir
Middle English
burnishen
English, today
burnish

Built from

burnysshen · Middle English — to polish, burnish; (figuratively) to brighten, give lustre to; to clean (something) until shiny; to decorate (with something shiny), adorn
brunir · Old French — to make clean and shiny, polish; to make brown

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”)bornysch, bornysh, bornyssh, burnesch, burnesh, burnessh, burneyssh, burnisch, burnischen, burnissh, burnysh, burnyssch, burnyssh, 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”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European bʰerH- (“brown”). Unrelated to burn. The noun is derived from the verb.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

Practise this word

burnish in the wild

Bone tools were used to burnish the surfaces to make them shiny and impermeable.
Unstan ware
Stropping can also burnish (i.e., push metal around on) the blade.
Razor strop
The Los Angeles Times wondered how stable the manuscript was when it was published, adding that it does nothing to "burnish the legacy of either of its authors".
The Last Theorem
Vibratory finishing is a type of mass finishing manufacturing process used to deburr, radius, descale, burnish, clean, and brighten a large number of relatively small workpieces.
Vibratory finishing
Roller burnishing is a surface finishing technique where hardened rollers cold work surface imperfections to reduce surface roughness.
Roller burnishing

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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