nail polish

American

noun

a polish of quick-drying lacquer, either clear or colored, used to paint the fingernails or toenails.

nail polish British

noun

a quick-drying lacquer applied to colour the nails or make them shiny or esp both

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

nail polishes

plural

Etymology

Origin of nail polish

First recorded in 1905–10

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.

See Examples For:

nail polish

She said she recognised her mother's from her red nail polish.

From Barron's ● May 20, 2026

Earlier attempts to solve this problem involved adding conductive materials such as carbon nanotubes or metallic particles to nail polish.

From Science Daily ● Mar. 26, 2026

That includes Anew Material, a company making nail polish that it says is free of petrochemicals and microplastics.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 18, 2026

That content included one TikTok post referencing a Formula 1 scandal titled "Explaining 2008 Crashgate in girl terms" written in pink glowing text alongside pink nail polish emojis.

From BBC ● Nov. 16, 2025

Bridge loved Tab’s living room: the plants on the windowsills, the black-and-white photographs on the walls, the jars of nail polish scattered across the coffee table like pretty rocks.

From "Goodbye Stranger" by Rebecca Stead

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023