sheen

comparative sheener · superlative sheenest

1. archaicpoeticrareusuallyBeautiful, good-looking, attractive, fair; bright, radiant; shiny.

   […] Would'st hear, what dims those eyes so sheen?

   1811, La Belle Assemblée, page 44

   5 more examples

   Up rose each warrier bold and brave, / Glistening in filed steel and armor sheen.

   1600, [Torquato Tasso], “(please specify |book=1 to 20)”, in Edward Fairefax [i.e., Edward Fairfax], transl., Godfrey of Bulloigne, or The Recouerie of Ierusalem. […], London: […] Ar[nold] Hatfield, for I[saac] Iaggard and M[atthew] Lownes, →OCLC

   The doleful Dumps I sing, and tearful Woes, Of Marian teeming with unlawful Throes: The sheenest Lass in Berkshire was she known, Of all that Butter fell to Reading Town: […]

   1741, The London Magazine, and Monthly Chronologer, page 430

   Where the fountains glisten sheenest […] (ch. 12).

   1814, Walter Scott, Waverley

   The woods, and vales were sheen as day, With light from its own living fountain; […]

   1877, James Sharp, The Captive King and Other Poems, page 218

   None other but the chroniclers of so many brawny feasts in the hard-eating country round Phalsburg could do justice to the splendid figure which the roast goose cut in his dish, stuffed as he was with chestnuts and truffles, and glistening with the sheenest gravy.

   1878, The Cornhill Magazine, volume 37, page 449

2. archaicpoeticrareusuallyClear, pure, clean; noble, illustrious; (by extension) innocent, chaste.

   […] The boom of bees, with wings as sheen as glass.

   1916, Charles Montagu Doughty, The Titans, page 15

   5 more examples

   […] And all her crystal springs, whence clear and sheen Her brooks receive the wat'ry element, […]

   1822, William Tennant, The Thane of Fife: A Poem, in Six Cantos, page 48

   'Twas not when early flowers were springing, When skies were sheen, And wheat was green, […]

   1823, The London Magazine, volume 8, page 604

   […] Hard by yon little fountain, clear and sheen, Whose swollen streamlet murmurs down the glade, […]

   1832, Job Durfee, What Cheer: Or, Roger Williams in Banishment, page 105

   Where rolled 'neath shimmering sun and shade, A forest brook the sheenest […]

   1872, Robert Dwyer Joyce, Ballads of Irish Chivalry, page 174

   So I went on up the slimy stair, and without the Palace gate there was a herb-seller, standing with her pannier full of sweetness, wondrous fresh and fair, a maid that looked up at me with her virgin's eyes, child-eyes clear and sheen.

   2006, Rosemary Hawley Jarman, We Speak No Treason: The White Rose Turned to Blood

plural sheens

1. alsocountablefigurativelyuncountableSplendor; radiance; shininess.

   Mr. Leerhsen said in an interview that he wanted to write a book without the dutiful sheen of what he called “an official Bourdain product.”

   2022 September 27, Kim Severson, “The Last, Painful Days of Anthony Bourdain”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

   1 more example

   There is a greenish sheen across the shoulders of his greasy black suit, for the morning light has of a sudden begun to dance through the bay window.

   1946, Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

2. countableuncountableA thin layer of a substance (such as oil) spread on a solid or liquid surface.

   oil sheen

   2 more examples

   Perhaps the simplest of sauces is the pat of butter dropped on a heap of hot vegetables, or stirred into rice or noodles, or drawn across the surface of an omelet or steak to give a sheen.

   2004, Harold McGee, chapter 1, in On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, →ISBN

   Take the floating scum or oil sheen prohibitions. A discharger or an inspector simply can look to see if scum, or an oil sheen, is coming from a particular discharge. Assume an oil sheen begins at a discharge—is the sheen caused by that […]

   2017, Jeffrey Miller, Ann Powers, Introduction to Environmental Law: Cases and Materials on Water Pollution Control, West Academic, →ISBN

present singular third person sheens · participle present sheening · participle past sheened · past sheened

1. intransitivepoeticrareTo shine; to glisten.

   This town, / That, sheening far, celestial seems to be.

   1812, Lord Byron, “Canto I”, in Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage. A Romaunt, London: […] [F]or John Murray, […]; William Blackwood, Edinburgh; and John Cumming, Dublin; by Thomas Davison, […], →OCLC, stanza XVII

plural sheens

1. The letter ش in the Arabic script.

1. An area of Greater London, officially East Sheen.
2. A village and civil parish in Staffordshire Moorlands district, Staffordshire, England, on the border with Derbyshire (OS grid ref SK1161).
3. A surname.