tarnish

in a sentence

grouped by contextual meaning

The cleaner removes tarnish on contact.

"One last thing," she said, and she drew out a small oval picture frame of tarnished silver.  (source) Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees, 2002

Mae Tuck climbed out of bed and began to dress: three petticoats, a rusty brown skirt with one enormous pocket, an old cotton jacket, and a knitted shawl which she pinned across her bosom with a tarnished metal brooch.  (source) Natalie Babbitt, Tuck Everlasting, 1975

Inside the carton, wrapped in tissue paper, was an old army-issue compass in a brass case, tarnished green-gray with age.  (source) Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing, 2018

Stood in the silver tarnish of a half-moon and glanced up to a sky riddled with stars.†  (source) Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner, 2003

In its center, between the untarnished copper plates, a word was chiseled deep into the stone: VALARITAS.†  (source) Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind, 2007

The bird's deceptively dark color was the result of Rome's pollution tarnishing the original bronze.†  (source) Dan Brown, Angels & Demons, 2000

Nothing tarnishes a hero as much as failure.†  (source) George R. R. Martin, A Feast For Crows, 2005

The following week the knot-hole yielded a tarnished medal.  (source) Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, 1960

Judging by the black tarnish, people were still traveling by horse and buggy the last time these pieces were cleaned.†  (source) Firoozeh Dumas, Funny in Farsi, 2003

The most interesting thing about it had to be the fact that the wires which held it in place were clean, untarnished, bright and gleaming at their ends, as if they had just recently been cut, unlike their more oxidized brethren everyplace else where the specimen had been wired.†  (source) Roger Zelazny, My Name is Legion, 1976

The azalea scent, so fragrant and delicate in the air, had turned stale inside the wardrobe, tarnishing the silver dresses and the brocade, and the breath of it wafted towards me now from the open doors, faded and old.†  (source) Daphne du Maurier, Rebecca, 1938

He tarnishes.†  (source) Chang-rae Lee, Native Speaker, 1995

There is a strong program beneath the tarnish of recent neglect.

The law school's good name was tarnished by the failure of so many students to pass the Bar Exam.

But we have been at war, and you know how that can tarnish even the best men.  (source) Madeline Miller, Circe, 2018

Anything that threatened to tarnish his reputation had to go; he had dedicated his whole life to becoming Minister of Magic.  (source) J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, 2000

My family's name has been tarnished beyond recognition by my son's treatment at the hands of this…this…boy!  (source) Frank Beddor, The Looking Glass Wars, 2006

The BBC producers loved Teabing's hot premise, his research, and his credentials, but they had concerns that the concept was so shocking and hard to swallow that the network might end up tarnishing its reputation for quality journalism.  (source) Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code, 2003

If the coming slaughter was so much more essential to Caius than an untarnished reputation.  (source) Stephenie Meyer, Breaking Dawn, 2008

She probably wouldn't want to tarnish her reputation by being seen with us.  (source) Meg Cabot, The Princess Diaries, 2000

Of all those who had so foully tarnished the image of the modern South he was a leading mischief-maker ...  (source) William Styron, Sophie's Choice, 1976

To begin with, she wouldn't even consider tarnishing her reputation with a string of danna, but might instead have only one or two in her entire life.  (source) Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha, 1997

Whatever Aro's goal, I don't think he's ready to tarnish the Volturi's reputation for it.  (source) Stephenie Meyer, Breaking Dawn, 2008

Elizabeth also wept and was unhappy, but hers also was the misery of innocence, which, like a cloud that passes over the fair moon, for a while hides but cannot tarnish its brightness.  (source) Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, 1831