Both Uses of
burnish
in
The Scarlet Letter
- There was a steel head-piece, a cuirass, a gorget and greaves, with a pair of gauntlets and a sword hanging beneath; all, and especially the helmet and breastplate, so highly burnished as to glow with white radiance, and scatter an illumination everywhere about upon the floor.†
Chpt 7 *
- The entire array, moreover, clad in burnished steel, and with plumage nodding over their bright morions, had a brilliancy of effect which no modern display can aspire to equal.†
Chpt 22
Definition:
-
(burnish) polish and make shiny -- especially metal
or more generally: to improve something -- especially the impression that something makes