burnish
Americanverb
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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burnishsimple
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burnishessimple
-
have burnishedperfect
-
has burnishedperfect
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am burnishingprogressive
-
are burnishingprogressive
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is burnishingprogressive
-
have been burnishingperfect progressive
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has been burnishingperfect progressive
Past
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burnishedsimple
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had burnishedperfect
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was burnishingprogressive
-
were burnishingprogressive
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had been burnishingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of burnish
1275–1325; Middle English burnissh < Anglo-French burniss-, Middle French bruniss- (long stem of burnir, brunir to darken, polish), equivalent to brun- brown + -iss- -ish 2
Explanation
That seductive gleam on that Porsche behind the dealer's window? It's called a burnish, a gloss only achieved by loads of polishing. Likewise, you can burnish a resume by polishing it until it's perfect. A caution about usage: burnish in the physical sense is usually reserved for inanimate objects, not people — you usually wouldn't say that someone's appearance is "burnished to perfection" or that your freshly scrubbed face is burnished. But you could burnish a car, a suit of armor, or a copper kettle. Reputations are among the most common non-physical things to be burnished.
Vocabulary lists containing burnish
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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The Scarlet Letter
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Vocabulary from the Introduction to "Reality is Broken" by Jane McGonigal
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Clark said Anthropic's motivation for publicly discussing the growing capability of AI technology is not to further burnish its reputation with paying customers.
From BBC • Jun. 4, 2026
Next month's World Cup, where Los Angeles is hosting eight matches, was supposed to allow the Californian metropolis to burnish its image, just two years before the city hosts the Olympic Games.
From Barron's • May 27, 2026
Raja Qaiser Ahmed, a professor of international relations at Islamabad's Quaid-i-Azam University, said Pakistan's robust military responses in both conflicts helped burnish its regional credentials.
From Barron's • Apr. 14, 2026
Tech billionaires looking to burnish their image seem to believe that the work ethic is an expendable feature of a free-market society.
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 24, 2026
It’s a glorious evening, warm but not too close, the sun starting its lazy descent, shadows lengthening and the light just beginning to burnish the trees with gold.
From "The Girl on the Train" by Paula Hawkins
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
