Sheen
adj, name, noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 Splendor; radiance; shininess. also, countable, figuratively, uncountable
"There is a greenish sheen across the shoulders of his greasy black suit, for the morning light has of a sudden begun to dance through the bay window."
- 2 The letter ش in the Arabic script.
- 3 the visual property of something that shines with reflected light wordnet
- 4 A thin layer of a substance (such as oil) spread on a solid or liquid surface. countable, uncountable
"oil sheen"
- 1 To shine; to glisten. intransitive, poetic, rare
"This town, / That, sheening far, celestial seems to be."
- 1 Beautiful, good-looking, attractive; radiant; shiny. poetic, rare
"Up rose each warrier bold and brave, / Glistening in filed steel and armor sheen."
- 1 An area of Greater London, officially East Sheen.
- 2 A village and civil parish in Staffordshire Moorlands district, Staffordshire, England, on the border with Derbyshire (OS grid ref SK1161).
- 3 A surname.
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples""I was talking to Tom Cruise once (a really close friend of mine), and I was telling him about the latest antics of my pal Charlie Sheen. We sat there talking for about an hour when I got a call from Jay Leno. He wanted me to be on his show next week. I was pretty busy, but I told Jay I would find time in my schedule for his show. Oh, I have to be off." "Here are your bags and change, sir." "Thanks." "Thank you, sir, have a great day.""
Etymology
From Middle English shene, schene, from Old English sċīene (“beautiful, fair, bright, brilliant, light”), from Proto-West Germanic *skaunī, from Proto-Germanic *skauniz (“beautiful”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kewh₁-. Cognate with Scots schene, scheine (“beautiful, fair, attractive”), Saterland Frisian skeen (“clean, pure”), West Frisian skjin (“nice, clean”), Dutch schoon (“clean, beautiful, fair”), German schön (“beautiful”), Danish skøn (“beautiful”), Norwegian Bokmål skjønn (“beautiful”), Norwegian Nynorsk skjønn (“beautiful”), Swedish skön (“beautiful, fine”). Compare also the loanword Finnish kaunis (“beautiful”). See also English show.
From Old English Sceon (“shelter, shed”), from Proto-Germanic *skūrō.
Related phrases
More for "sheen"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.