Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
A painter, air you? you don't look it," sez I. "P'raps it's holiday time with ye," sez I, "and that makes you look so varnishy.
From Aylwin by Theodore Watts-Dunton
Smilax, or nothing; and yet I don't like that hard, shiny, varnishy look of smilax either.
From Bride Roses by William Dean Howells
As he stole past the joiner's on that sunny morning, when wood was resinous and pungent of odour, he was suddenly conscious of a varnishy smell, and felt a misgiving without knowing why.
From The House with the Green Shutters by George Douglas Brown
Any roofed-over shed or shack, with doors or not, is what one generally has to put up with to-day, for housing his resplendent brassy and varnishy automobile.
From The Automobilist Abroad by M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
The varnishy smell of the desks, the smell of the wallflowers at Mrs. Manzie's on the way to school, the smell of the school itself—to all these he was morbidly alive, and he loathed them.
From The House with the Green Shutters by George Douglas Brown
