Furbish
verb ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 To polish or burnish.
- 2 polish and make shiny wordnet
- 3 To renovate or recondition; to refurbish.
"I do not indeed suppose that anyone can at this time of day effect that which the sense of all good men failed to effect while he lived--I mean the final killing of those rumours; nor is a plain tale likely to persuade those, with whom idle reports, constantly furbished up, of letters seen in France, weigh more than a consistent life."
Example
More examples"I do not indeed suppose that anyone can at this time of day effect that which the sense of all good men failed to effect while he lived--I mean the final killing of those rumours; nor is a plain tale likely to persuade those, with whom idle reports, constantly furbished up, of letters seen in France, weigh more than a consistent life."
Etymology
Etymology tree Frankish *furbēnbor. Old French forbirbor. Middle English furbisshen English furbish From Middle English furbisshen, from Old French forbir (stem furbiss-, “to clean, polish”), from Frankish *furbēn (“to clean, polish”).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.