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Burnish   Listen
verb
Burnish  v. t.  (past & past part. burnished; pres. part. burnishing)  To cause to shine; to make smooth and bright; to polish; specifically, to polish by rubbing with something hard and smooth; as, to burnish brass or paper. "The frame of burnished steel, that east a glare From far, and seemed to thaw the freezing air." "Now the village windows blaze, Burnished by the setting sun."
Burnishing machine, a machine for smoothing and polishing by compression, as in making paper collars.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Burnish" Quotes from Famous Books



... shaggy ponies from Pamere; These all filed out from camp into the plain. 135 And on the other side the Persians form'd;— First a light cloud of horse, Tartars they seem'd. The Ilyats of Khorassan deg.; and behind, deg.138 The royal troops of Persia, horse and foot, Marshall'd battalions bright in burnish'd steel. 140 But Peran-Wisa with his herald came, Threading the Tartar squadrons to the front, And with his staff kept back the foremost ranks. And when Ferood, who led the Persians, saw That Peran-Wisa kept the Tartars back, 145 He took ...
— Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum and Other Poems • Matthew Arnold

... of thine, That used to serve thy cup of wine, Whose beauty was so rare? When last in Raby towers we met, The boy I closely eyed, And often marked his cheeks were wet, With tears he fain would hide: His was no rugged horse-boy's hand, To burnish shield or sharpen brand, Or saddle battle-steed; But meeter seemed for lady fair, To fan her cheek or curl her hair, Or through embroidery, rich and rare, The slender silk to lead: His skin was fair, his ringlets gold, His bosom—when he sighed - The russet doublet's rugged fold Could scarce ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott

... That that foul miscreant's dark and stubborn flesh Recks not the force of arms:—such I forswear, Nor sword nor burnish'd shield of ample round Ask for the war; all weaponless, hand to hand (So may great Higelac's smile repay my toil) Beowulf will grapple with the mighty foe.'" ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber

... see me when it suiteth me," said Mr Headley coolly. "He wotteth well that Hillyer hath none who can burnish ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge

... upon the brink of a superb adventure. To rummage about in the lumber-room of a bygone period: to wipe away the dust from long-neglected annals: to burnish up old facts and fancies: to piece together the life-story of some loved hero long dead: that is a work of reverent thought to be undertaken in peace and seclusion. But to plunge boldly into the study of a living personality: to strive ...
— Hilaire Belloc - The Man and His Work • C. Creighton Mandell

... Silver that has been freshly Boyl'd, as the Artificers call it, (which is done by, first Brushing, and then Decocting it with Salt and Tartar, and perhaps some other Ingredients) you shall find it to be of a Lovely White. But if you take a piece of Smooth Steel, and therewith Burnish a part of it, which may be presently done, you shall find that Part will Lose its Whiteness, and turn a Speculum, looking almost every where Dark, as other Looking-glasses do, which may not a little confirm our Doctrine. For by this we may guess, what it is chiefly ...
— Experiments and Considerations Touching Colours (1664) • Robert Boyle

... She had a knack of tidiness, with which she had infected the Doctor; everything was in its place; everything capable of polish shone gloriously; and dust was a thing banished from her empire. Aline, their single servant, had no other business in the world but to scour and burnish. So Doctor Desprez lived in his house like a fatted calf, warmed and cosseted to his ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson

... 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 loved cloisters pale! 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! where oft my simple ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman

... chuckie Reekie's sair distrest, Down drops her ance weel burnish'd crest, Nae joy her bonnie buskit nest Can yield ava; Her darling bird that she ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham

... dim funereal tapers throw A holy lustre o'er his brow, And burnish with their rays of light The mass of curls that gather bright Above the haughty brow and eye Of a young boy that's ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various

... book. 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 done worse than I hoped, worse than I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... of the lord, to whom I was to be offered, the mayor led me to a hotel, where we could make ourselves presentable to his excellency. Several servants, called maskatti, or dressers, joined us for this purpose. One took the mayor's sword to burnish it; another tied different colored bands to his tail. I will here remark, that nothing lays nearer to a monkey's heart than the adornment ...
— Niels Klim's journey under the ground • Baron Ludvig Holberg

... having a keen eye for the cutworm, its only enemy. The quail does love it, not for itself, but for its protection, leading her brood into its labyrinths out of the dusty road when danger draws near. Best of all winged creatures it is loved by the iris-eyed, burnish-breasted, murmuring doves, already beginning to gather in the deadened tree-tops with crops eager for the seed. Well remembered also by the long-flight passenger pigeon, coming into the land for the mast. Best ...
— The Reign of Law - A Tale of the Kentucky Hemp Fields • James Lane Allen

... though, like most of us, she only faced the 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 dreadful if ...
— A Room With A View • E. M. Forster

... to the same school with Donald. She was a shy little thing with big brown eyes, which looked at you wistfully, and a mass of yellow hair, which the sun in the summer mornings loved to burnish. Minnie at the age of ten felt drawn to Donald, as timid women generally feel drawn toward masterful men, ignoring the steadier love of gentler natures. Donald had from the start constituted himself her protector in a lordly way. He had once resented a belittling remark which a schoolmate had used ...
— The Hunted Outlaw - Donald Morrison, The Canadian Rob Roy • Anonymous

... boy, if he be present, to keepe it: if not, he puts it vp into his Saptargat, that is to say, his foure square budget, which they vse to cary about with them for the sauing of all such prouision, and wherein they lay vp their bones, when they haue not time to gnaw them throughly, that they may burnish them afterward, to the end that no whit of their food may come ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries - Vol. II • Richard Hakluyt

... drop a tear O'er the beauteous Hero's bier. Brave youth and comely 'bove compare; All golden shone his burnish'd hair; Valor and smiling courtesy Played in the sunbeams of his eye. Closed are those eyes that shone so fair And stain'd with blood his yellow hair. Scottish maidens drop a tear O'er the ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas

... puddle of gloom and of shadowy things, He sped till the red and the gold of invisible day Was burnish and flames to the undermost spread of his wings, So he outlighted the stars as he ...
— Tam O' The Scoots • Edgar Wallace

... his hands, especially during the long hours of the evening. After thanking his father for his kindness, he rushed wildly off to order his horse to be prepared for him to accompany the troop, to re-burnish the arms which he had already chosen as fitting him from the armory, and to make what few preparations were ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty

... clear brow in sunlight glow'd; On burnish'd hooves his war-horse trode; From underneath his helmet flow'd His coal-black curls as on he rode, As he rode down to Camelot. [14] From the bank and from the river He flashed into the crystal mirror, "Tirra lirra," by the river [15] ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson

... spears, and bright with burnish'd shields, The embattled legions stretch their long array; Discord's red torch, as fierce she scours the fields, With bloody tincture stains the face ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]

... say), or the colours dashed on to the canvas with the proper amount of daring. Still, I fear, they must be satisfied with what is offered: my palette affords no brighter tints; were t to attempt to deepen the reds, or burnish the ...
— The Life of Charlotte Bronte • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... gauge, and each about a foot in length. One piece should be too soft, another too hard, and the third piece of the right quality. Fix them in a vice, about an inch apart and in a vertical position, and with the light from a window shining upon them. Burnish them if necessary, and you will see a band of light reflected ...
— The Aeroplane Speaks - Fifth Edition • H. Barber

... made of glass, (for glass mirrors cannot be shown to have existed before the thirteenth century,) but of polished metals; and amongst these, silver was in the greatest esteem, as being capable of a higher burnish than other metals, and less liable to tarnish. Metallic mirrors are alluded to by Job, xxxvii. 18. But it appears from the Second Book of Moses, xxxviii. 8, that in that age, copper must have been the metal employed throughout the harems of Palestine. For ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey

... deposited 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 upon ...
— On Laboratory Arts • Richard Threlfall

... 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 ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... he roves through the tide, Then his clear glitt'ring side Is burnish'd with silver and gold; And the sweep of his flight Seems a rainbow of light, As again he sinks ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume V. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... 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

... earth ta'en dry out of the ground, Were of one colour with the robe he wore. From underneath that vestment forth he drew Two keys of metal twain: the one was gold, Its fellow silver. With the pallid first, And next the burnish'd, he so ply'd the gate, As to content me well. "Whenever one Faileth of these, that in the keyhole straight It turn not, to this alley then expect Access in vain." Such were the words he spake. "One is more precious: but the other ...
— The Divine Comedy, Complete - The Vision of Paradise, Purgatory and Hell • Dante Alighieri

... cleared his throat with a sharp ahem and proceeded to burnish his crystals. Specks and motes were ever adhering to them. He held them up to the light and pretended to look through them: he saw nothing but ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath

... Home! Home! Oh, God! Comfort of weary and battered humanity, dragging its wounded and broken life to the shelter and the sanctity of love. So rose her hopes, and her heart sang as the brooding night lowered and the wind rose, bringing the rain lashing from the spring clouds to burnish the moor with storms. Home to the hearts that loved her first, and would love her to ...
— The Underworld - The Story of Robert Sinclair, Miner • James C. Welsh

... Fenelon and D'Aguesseau! In that illustrious catalogue 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 cheek, ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward

... generally speaking, he closed his literary toils at dinner;" "Considering the burnish of her French tastes, her ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell

... powerful in the dark terra cotta, which can ennoble even the fattest and flattest faces with its wonderful faculty for making mere surface markings, mere crowsfeet, interesting. Thus also with bronze: the polished, worked bronze, of fine chocolate burnish and reddish reflections, mars all beauty of line; how different the unchased, merely rough cast, greenish, with infinite delicate greys and browns, making, for instance, the head of an old woman like an exquisite withered, shrivelled, ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee

... for? is it for us The beautiful world is burnish'd and blent? If we had not eyes, would blossoms shine thus? If we had not nostrils, would ...
— Harry • Fanny Wheeler Hart

... 'With burnish'd brand and musketoon So gallantly you come, I read you for a bold Dragoon, That lists the tuck of drum.' 'I list no more the tuck of drum, No more the trumpet hear; But when the beetle sounds his hum, My ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... towers, Unconscious of the stony hours; Harsh gateways startled at a sound, With burning lamps all burnish'd round; - ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... 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 in ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... longer reigned supreme. It seemed to have been devoured at a gulp. The heavenly lights had lost all power in face of this earthly glory. A mist of smoke had switched off the gleam of starlight, and the moon and mock-moons wore the tarnished hue of silver that has lost its burnish. The ghosts of the aurora no longer trod their measure of stately minuet. They had passed into the world of shadow to ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum

... sun clears the air; and then Crawls back neglected to his den.[4] So, when the war has raised a storm, I've seen a snake in human form, All stain'd with infamy and vice, Leap from the dunghill in a trice, Burnish and make a gaudy show, Become a general, peer, and beau, Till peace has made the sky serene, Then shrink into its hole again. "All this we grant—why then, look yonder, Sure that must be a Salamander!" Further, we are by Pliny told, This ...
— The Poems of Jonathan Swift, D.D., Volume I (of 2) • Jonathan Swift

... methinks, I seem to see One spot of burning brightness, beaming clear Through all the floating glory, like a sphere Quenching light with its own intensity. Yes! yes! it is the Holy City I behold, With God's sun, from its towers of burnish'd gold, Reflected broadly ...
— Poems • Walter R. Cassels

... on the burnish'd board Sparkled and shone; so genial was the hearth: And on the right hand of the hearth he saw Philip, the slighted suitor of old times, Stout, rosy, with his babe across his knees; And o'er her second father stoopt a girl, A later but ...
— Enoch Arden, &c. • Alfred Tennyson

... evil-minded men) are fond of bringing forward the argument that colours suffer in grey weather, and that strong sunlight is necessary to all the hues of heaven and earth. Here again there are two words to be said; and it is essential to distinguish. It is true that sun is needed to burnish and bring into bloom the tertiary and dubious colours; the colour of peat, pea-soup, Impressionist sketches, brown velvet coats, olives, grey and blue slates, the complexions of vegetarians, the tints of volcanic rock, chocolate, cocoa, mud, soot, ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton

... 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 ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various

... at his work, burnishing gold and melting silver, had no time to warm his love or to burnish and make shine his fantasies, nor to show off, gad about, waste his time in mischief, or to run after she-males. Now seeing that in Paris virgins do not fall into the beds of young men any more than roast pheasants into the streets, not even when the ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac

... showed to the elbow; her hat she had taken off, and the sun danced in the gold lustres of her hair. She was all aglow; she belonged out in the fresh air and the sunlight like this; she could stand it; that dusky-gold radiance played from her like a burnish. Steering sat down on the log bench and watched her, hypnotised by her into haunting fancies of something, somebody, somewhere. She was one of those beings whose rich magnetism of face and personality brings them close to you, not only for the present, but ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young

... epoch-maker his own. Caesar's secret lay in the power he had of projecting a soul into the ranks of an army, of making legions and their leader one. Disobedience only he punished; anything else he forgave. After a victory his soldiery did what they liked. He gave them arms, slaves to burnish them, women, feasts, sleep. They were his comrades; he called them so; he wept at the death of any of them, and when they were frightened, as they were in Gaul before they met the Germans, and in Africa before they encountered Juba, Caesar frightened them still more. ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus

... of the sky, the whole circle of the world's rim, lay bare to the eye, infinitely varied by clouds and cloud-shadows, by pasture and arable, dark patches of woods and pallor of pools, by the lambent burnish of the west and the soft purpling of the east, even by differing weathers—here great shafts of sunlight, there the blurred column of a distant shower, or the faint smear, like a bruise upon the horizon, of ...
— Secret Bread • F. Tennyson Jesse

... are return'd from viewing The number, strength, and posture of our foes, Who now encamp within a short hour's march; On the high point of yon bright western tower, We ken them from afar; the setting sun Plays on their shining arms and burnish'd helmets, And covers all the field ...
— Cato - A Tragedy, in Five Acts • Joseph Addison

... novelty to Lad. But when a bath tub contained certain ingredients from boxes on the dog-closet shelf,—ingredients that fluff the coat and burnish it and make all its hairs stand out like a Circassian Beauty's, that meant but ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune

... thy body is, Till the sunshine, striking this, Alchemise its dulness, When the sleek curls manifold Flash all over into gold With a burnish'd fulness. ...
— Heads and Tales • Various

... 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 one as in ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh

... rekantajxo. Burden sxargi. Burdensome multepeza. Bureau (office) oficejo. Burgess burgo. Burglar domorabisto. Burial enterigxo. Buried, to be enterigxi. Burn (trans.) bruligi. Burn (intrans.) bruli. Burner (gas) flamingo. Burnish poluri. Burrow kavigi. Bury (something) enfosi. Bury (inter.) enterigi. Bush arbetajxo. Bushel busxelo. Buskin duonboto. Business (profession) profesio. Business (in general) afero. Business-man aferisto. Bust busto. ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... knowledge, and our walk was enlivened by some rather too lively discussions between us. We walked about together, however, till the shadows of the firs by the mills stretched nearly across the pond and the white moon began to put on a silvery burnish. Then we wound up by a bitter dispute, during which Gussie's eyes were very black and each cheek had a round, red stain on it. She had a little air of triumph ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... 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, Transfix'd ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston

... 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 ...
— Caxton's Book of Curtesye • Frederick J. Furnivall

... Richmond roughens on his masted side; Reviving Norfolk from her ashes springs, A golden phoenix on refulgent wings; Potowmak's yellow waves reluctant spread, And Vernon rears his rich and radiant head, Tis here the chief his pointed graver stays, The bank to burnish with a purer blaze, Gives all his art, on this bright hill to trace His future seat and glory of his race; Deems his long line of lords the realm shall own, The kings predestined to ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow

... notice that the first tells us how to burnish a photograph; the second, how to split ...
— Composition-Rhetoric • Stratton D. Brooks

... 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 ...
— Short-Stories • Various

... the stout harvesters falleth the grain, As when the strong storm-wind is reaping the plain, And loiters the boy in the briery lane; But yonder aslant comes the silvery rain, Like a long line of spears brightly burnish'd ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various

... apartment even more profoundly depressing than the one she had left. Its one important piece of furniture was a circular table of rosewood standing in the centre of the carpet under a brass gaselier, of which the burnish had perished in patches; and in the centre of the table stood a round-topped glass case containing a stuffed kestrel, with a stuffed lark prostrate under its talons and bleeding vermilion wax. Around this ornament were disposed, as the Doctor had promised, a number of albums and illustrated ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... 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. Her upper part of decent discipline ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden

... 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 the poet. I assert, then, that in the wondrous bodily whiteness of the bird chiefly lurks the secret of the spell; a truth the more evinced in this, that by a solecism of terms ...
— Moby-Dick • 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 ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... with the help of art, to adorn a great deal. How long did the canvas hang afore Aldgate? Were the people suffered to see the city's Love and Charity, while they were rude stone, before they were painted and burnish'd? No: no more should Servants approach their mistresses, but when they are ...
— Epicoene - Or, The Silent Woman • Ben Jonson

... 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 lovesick with them; the oars were silver, Which to the time of flutes kept stroke, and made The water which they beat to follow faster As ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese

... in a path, And drew a burnish'd brand, And fifteen of the foremost slew, Till back ...
— A Collection of Ballads • Andrew Lang

... never meant it to appear as a book. 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 ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson

... 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

... illustrious together; their several achievements, both at home and in observatories on strange shores to which they voyaged, always associated; with what affectionate care she trained the favorite nephew, who was to burnish into still more effulgent brightness the star-linked name of Herschel, the story of all this is full of attractiveness, and forms one of the warm and poetic episodes in the high, cold annals of science. The union of John Aikin and his sister Letitia, afterwards Mrs. Barbauld, in life, tastes, ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger

... peasant. Always there is about him the feeling of the fields, the sense of nature's presence in his life, the atmosphere of distances. Nothing in his appearance suggests either the smear or the burnish ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie

... tassel of tarnished gold Hung by a faded cord from a hole Pierced in the hard wood, Circled with silver. For years the Poet had wrought upon this cane. His wealth had gone to enrich it, His experiences to pattern it, His labour to fashion and burnish it. To him it was perfect, A work of art and a weapon, A delight and a defence. The Poet took his ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell

... ere it is trod; Burnish the arms that he must wield; And pray, with all thy strength, that God May crown ...
— Legends and Lyrics: Second Series • Adelaide Anne Procter



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



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