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/vˈɑrnɪʃt/ Listen

verb

Varnish v. t. (past & past part. varnished; pres. part. varnishing)

To lay varnish on; to cover with a liquid which produces, when dry, a hard, glossy surface; as, to varnish a table; to varnish a painting.

To cover or conceal with something that gives a fair appearance; to give a fair coloring to by words; to gloss over; to palliate; as, to varnish guilt. "Beauty doth varnish age." "Close ambition, varnished o'er with zeal." "Cato's voice was ne'er employed To clear the guilty and to varnish crimes."

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Etymology of 'Varnished'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Varnished" Quotes from Famous Books

... luminousness is destroyed, but the opaqueness remains visible. Entrenched behind a mannerism so adroitly constructed as at once to invite and repel invasion, Emerson hurls out axioms and establishes precedents that prove upon examination to be either admirably varnished editions of old truths or statements of new ones of questionable legitimacy. Turn over leaf by leaf these early essays, and doubts arise as to the validity of the author's claim to originality. Carlyle has led before these pompous ...

— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... third story had never been finished. Bare walls, bare floors, fresh varnished wood-work and the steam ...

— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White

... Hezekiah was up, the chief brought to his room a new outfit of clothes—a silk hat, frock-coat, shepherd's-plaid trousers and varnished boots with spats. ...

— Nonsense Novels • Stephen Leacock

... barriers held by a suspicious constabulary; to obtain the good offices of the Under Sheriff, through those of his liveried lackeys; and finally to occupy the least space, on the narrowest of seats, in a varnished stall filled with curiously familiar faces, within a few feet of the heavily veiled prisoner in the dock, and not many more from the red-robed judge ...

— The Shadow of the Rope • E. W. Hornung

... preparations made, Which you do when your mind's made up to go To-night to Mrs. Boehm's masquerade,[223] Spectator, or Partaker in the show; The only difference known between the cases Is—here, we have six weeks of "varnished faces." ...

— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron

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