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Burnish   Listen
verb
Burnish  v. i.  To shine forth; to brighten; to become smooth and glossy, as from swelling or filling out; hence, to grow large. "A slender poet must have time to grow, And spread and burnish as his brothers do." "My thoughts began to burnish, sprout, and swell."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Burnish" Quotes from Famous Books



... to dinner in a new dress of pale green muslin . . . the first color she had worn since Matthew's death. It became her perfectly, bringing out all the delicate, flower-like tints of her face and the gloss and burnish ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... turn'd him in a path And drew a burnish'd brand And fifteen o' the foremost slew Till back the ...
— Sir Walter Scott and the Border Minstrelsy • Andrew Lang

... parental scenes! a sad farewell! To you my grateful heart still fondly clings, Tho' fluttering round on Fancy's burnish'd wings Her tales of future Joy Hope loves to tell. Adieu, adieu! ye much-lov'd cloisters pale! 5 Ah! would those happy days return again, When 'neath your arches, free from every stain, I heard of guilt and wonder'd at the tale! Dear haunts! ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... Knowing well that I have never had one hour of inspiration since it was begun, and have only beaten out my metal by brute force and patient repetition, I hoped some day to get a "spate of style" and burnish it—fine mixed metaphor. I am now so sick that I intend, when the Letters are done and some more written that will be wanted, simply to make a book of it by the pruning-knife. I cannot fight longer; I am sensible of having ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... thorn, maple-leaved or Virginia thorn (suitable for hedging), hawthorn, wild May cherry, or service berry, water beech, fringe tree, red bud, black alder, common alder, sumach, elder, laurel, witch-hazel, hazel-nut, papaw, chinkapin, burnish bush, nine bark, button-bush, honeysuckle, several varieties of the whortleberry ...
— History and Comprehensive Description of Loudoun County, Virginia • James W. Head

... in, like a burnish'd throne Burn'd on the water; the poop was beaten gold; Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that The winds were lovesick with them; the oars were silver, Which to the time of flutes kept stroke, and made The water which they ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese

... Sir Evan, undaunted Lochiel, Place thy targe on thy shoulder and burnish thy steel! Rough Keppoch, give breath to thy bugle's bold swell, Till far Coryarrick resound ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... from a hot cyanide solution is spongy in the extreme, and if the maximum wear-resisting effect is to be obtained, it is advisable to burnish the gold rather than to rely ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall

... the exterior of the barrel, lay it flat on a bench or board, to avoid bending it. The practice of supporting the barrel at each end, and rubbing it with a strap, buffstick, ramrod, or any other instrument to burnish it, is pernicious, and should ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN

... critics may give of Poe and his writings, they must all agree that he is original. He is a clever writer in a limited field. His writings have a glow and burnish that have their origin in his fondness for sensations, color, and vividness of details. He loves mystery and terror,—not the fancies and fears of a child, but overwrought nerves. His material is unreal, and remote from ordinary ...
— Short-Stories • Various

... she sat in, like a burnish'd throne, Burnt on the water; the poop was beaten gold, Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that The ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt

... my little bed, Letting the early hours of rest go by, To see thee flood the heaven with milky light, And feed thy snow-white swans, before I slept; For thou wert then purveyor of my dreams,— Thou wert the fairies' armourer, that kept Their burnish'd helms, and crowns, and corslets bright, Their spears, and glittering mails; And ever thou didst spill in winding streams Sparkles and midnight gleams, For fishes to ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... lark, weary of rest, From his moist cabinet mounts up on high, And wakes the morning, from whose silver breast The sun ariseth in his majesty, Who doth the world so gloriously behold, The cedar-tops and hills seem burnish'd gold." ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge

... upsprung the dazzling Cones Of Pyramids, as far surpassing Earth's As Heaven than Earth is fairer. Each aloft Upon his renown'd Eminence bore globes Of wheeling suns, or stars, or semblances Of either, showering circular abyss Of radiance. But the glory of the place Stood out a pillar'd front of burnish'd gold Interminably high, if gold it were Or metal more ethereal, and beneath Two doors of blinding brilliance, where no gaze Might rest, stood open, and the eye could scan Through length of porch and lake and boundless hall, Part of a throne of fiery flame, wherefrom The snowy ...
— The Suppressed Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Alfred Lord Tennyson

... of names, which she claims as of her children, and with honest pride holds up to the admiration of other nations, the name of LA FAYETTE has already for centuries been enrolled. And it shall henceforth burnish into brighter fame: for, if in after days, a Frenchman shall be called to indicate the character of his nation by that of one individual, during the age in which we live, the blood of lofty patriotism shall mantle in his ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward

... situation that encompassed her. She never gazed inwards. If at times strange images rose from the depths, she put them down to nerves. When Cecil brought the Emersons to Summer Street, it had upset her nerves. Charlotte would burnish up past foolishness, and this might upset her nerves. She was nervous at night. When she talked to George—they met again almost immediately at the Rectory—his voice moved her deeply, and she wished to remain near him. How ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster

... is one admirable word here, enbarnis, which has so long been lost to French that it is not even in Littre. But Dryden's "burnish into man" probably preserves it in English; for this is certainly not the other "burnish" from brunir. ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury

... gathered in the garden, sufficed amply for her support. The pastoral solitude of the place had in it a quiet, dreamy fascination, a novelty, an unwearying charm, after the austere loneliness to which her former existence had been subjected in Rome. And when evening came, and the sun began to burnish the tops of the western tress, then, after the calm emotions of the solitary day, came the hour of absorbing cares and happy expectations—ever the same, yet ever delighting and ever new. Then the rude shutters ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins

... pleasure. She was of an unusual type, tall and dark, dressed in black with the simplicity of a nun, with only a little gleam of white at her throat. Her hair—so much of it as showed under her flower-garlanded hat—was as black as jet, and yet, where she stood in the full glare of the sunlight, the burnish of it was almost wine-coloured. Her cheeks were pale, her expression thoughtful. Her eyes, rather heavily lidded, were a deep shade of violet. Her mouth ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... meals, and when serving at table, a wise man's advice on the books his little Jack should read, the best English poets,—then Gower, Chaucer, Occleve, and Lydgate,—not the Catechism and Latin Grammar. It was very pleasant to come off the directions not to conveye spetell over the table, or burnish one's bones with one's teeth, to the burst of enthusiasm with which the writer speaks of our old poets. He evidently believed in them with all his heart; and it would have been a good thing for England if our educators since had followed ...
— Caxton's Book of Curtesye • Frederick J. Furnivall

... make the paths of Paradise more sweet; Bethought him of a wife ere half way gone, For 'twas uneasy travelling alone; And, in this masquerade of mirth and love, Mistook the bliss of heaven for Bacchanals above. Sure he presumed of praise, who came to stock The ethereal pastures with so fair a flock, Burnish'd, and battening on their food, to show 390 Their diligence of careful herds below. Our Panther, though like these she changed her head, Yet, as the mistress of a monarch's bed, Her front erect with majesty she bore, The crosier wielded, and the mitre wore. ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... I least think of them. All that I have observed since, of flowers and plants, and grass-plots, and of suburb delights, seems to me borrowed from 'that first garden of my innocence'—to be slips and scions stolen from that bed of memory. In this manner the darlings of our childhood burnish out in the eye of after years, and derive their sweetest perfume from the first heartfelt sigh of pleasure ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt

... the midst, a double throne. Like burnish'd cloud of evening shone; While, group'd the base around, Four Damsels stood of Faery race; Who, turning each with heavenly grace Upon me her immortal face, ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston

... We ought to have been at least twenty feet high to fit the hour and the scene. Gradually the lights faded, the shadows faded, then both began to merge till a soft grey-blue dropped over all blending into the sky everywhere except west where the burnish of sunset remained. Before dark the old camp was reached; we found the saw by the last dying rays and then picked our backward path by starlight following the trail as we had come. Silence and the night were ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... soon down from his horse he bare, Stamped to ground, and drown'd withouten mair.[42] The third he hit in his harness of steel, Throughout the cost,[43] the spear it brake some deal. The great power then after him can ride. He saw no waill[44] there longer for to bide. His burnish'd brand braithly[45] in hand he bare, Whom he hit right they follow'd him na mair.[46] To stuff the chase feil freiks[47] follow'd fast, But Wallace made the gayest aye aghast. The muir he took, and through their power yede, The horse was good, but yet he ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... The bounding steed, the highly scented hound, 170 Nets, toils, and spears, the palace court surround. A favour'd band within the royal gate, The Queen who still delay'd, respectful wait. In purple trapping, burnish'd gold array'd, Proud on the foaming bit, her courser play'd; 175 She comes; the court her graceful steps surround; Her Tyrian vest, embroider'd fringes bound; Her quiver gold, with gold her hair enlac'd, A golden clasp her flowing mantle brac'd. Next with his Phrygian ...
— The Fourth Book of Virgil's Aeneid and the Ninth Book of Voltaire's Henriad • Virgil and Voltaire

... never shall be one. Our Imperium was organized to secure our rights within the United States and we will make any sacrifice that can be named to attain that end. Our efforts have been to wash the flag free of all blots, not to rend it; to burnish every star in the cluster, ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs

... some other light ships, was between the blockading fleet and the blockaded, where perpetual vigilance was needed. This sharp service was the very thing required to improve his character, to stamp it with decision and self-reliance, and to burnish his quiet, contemplative vein with the very frequent friction of the tricks of mankind. These he now was strictly bound not to study, but anticipate, taking it as first postulate that every one would ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... Destroyer on his side. So, with bright wreath of serpent-tresses crown'd, Severe in beauty, young MEDUSA frown'd; Erewhile subdued, round WISDOM'S Aegis roll'd 220 Hiss'd the dread snakes, and flam'd in burnish'd gold; Flash'd on her brandish'd arm the immortal shield, And Terror lighten'd ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin

... Coleridge's wild Rhyme have had aught to do with those mystical impressions which were mine, when I saw that bird upon our deck. For neither had I then read the Rhyme, nor knew the bird to be an albatross. Yet, in saying this, I do but indirectly burnish a little brighter the noble merit of the poem and ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville

... would not rest till my grandfather had put the musket into my arms. I could scarcely lift it, but from the first it had a charm for me, and now and then, in spite of my mother's protests, I was let to handle it, to learn its parts, to burnish it, and by-and-bye—I could not have been more than six years old—to rest it on a rock and fire it off. It kicked my shoulder roughly in firing, but I know I did not wink as I pulled the trigger. Then I got a wild hunger to fire it at all times; so ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... comment. The car drew up and she stepped into it—a tall, slim figure, wonderfully graceful in her unrelieved black, her hair gleaming as though with some sort of burnish, as she passed underneath the electric light. She looked back at him with a smile of farewell as he stood bareheaded upon the steps, a smile which reminded him somehow of her father, a little sardonic, a little tender, having ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... the city at any cost, cared not a straw what the world without might say of him. The rifle, the bayonet, the revolver, the whip—here were fine tools and proved. Let but a breath of suspicion frost the burnish of a reputation and he would have that man or woman at the bar, though arrest might cost a hundred lives. Thus it came about that those within the gates were a heterogeneous multitude to which all classes had ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton

... she sat in, like a burnish'd throne, Burn'd on the water. The poop was beaten gold; Purple the sails, and so perfumed that The winds were love-sick with them. The oars were silver, Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made The water which they beat to follow faster, As amorous of their strokes. For her own ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various

... elder religions; O you temples fairer than lilies pour'd over by the rising sun! O you fables spurning the known, eluding the hold of the known, mounting to heaven! You lofty and dazzling towers, pinnacled, red as roses, burnish'd with gold! Towers of fables immortal fashion'd from mortal dreams! You too I welcome and fully the same as the rest! You too with ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... a fiery gospel writ in burnish'd rows of steel: "As you deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal; Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel, ...
— Scouting For Girls, Official Handbook of the Girl Scouts • Girl Scouts

... substance. This for the basic color. You must remember always that it was a true trout, without scales, and so the more satiny. Furthermore, along either side of the belly ran two broad longitudinal stripes of exactly the color and burnish of the copper paint ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White

... put forth into the Terrene [32] sea, Where, [33] 'twixt the isles of Cyprus and of Crete, We quickly may in Turkish seas arrive. Then shalt thou see a hundred kings and more, Upon their knees, all bid me welcome home. Amongst so many crowns of burnish'd gold, Choose which thou wilt, all are at thy command: A thousand galleys, mann'd with Christian slaves, I freely give thee, which shall cut the Straits, And bring armadoes, from [34] the coasts of Spain, Fraughted with gold ...
— Tamburlaine the Great, Part II. • Christopher Marlowe

... said I, "let us talk of them. 'Tis well to furbish and burnish our minds with tales of rectitude ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane



Words linked to "Burnish" :   glaze, polish, radiance, effulgence, furbish, buff, smooth, shine, French polish, refulgence



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