Both Uses of
burnish
in
The House of the Seven Gables
- Groceries, toy-shops, drygoods stores, with their immense panes of plate-glass, their gorgeous fixtures, their vast and complete assortments of merchandise, in which fortunes had been invested; and those noble mirrors at the farther end of each establishment, doubling all this wealth by a brightly burnished vista of unrealities!†
Chpt 3burnished = polished and made shiny; or improved something
- At times, it seemed as if for every one of the hundred blossoms there was one of these tiniest fowls of the air,—a thumb's bigness of burnished plumage, hovering and vibrating about the bean-poles.†
Chpt 10 *
Definitions:
-
(1)
(burnish) to polish, especially to make metal shiny; or more generally, to improve or enhance something’s appearance or reputation
-
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
As a noun, something that is burnished is something that was rubbed to make it shiny.