Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun Glistening brightness; luster.
  • noun Splendid attire.
  • noun A glossy surface given to textiles.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An obsolete (Scotch) plural of shoe.
  • Fair; bright; shining; glittering; beautiful.
  • noun Brightness; luster; splendor.
  • To shine; glisten.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb Poetic To shine; to glisten.
  • adjective R., except in poetry. Bright; glittering; radiant; fair; showy; sheeny.
  • noun Brightness; splendor; glitter.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective beautiful, good-looking, attractive; radiant; shiny.
  • noun splendor; radiance; shininess.
  • verb To shine; to glisten.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the visual property of something that shines with reflected light

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Middle English shene, beautiful, from Old English scīene.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English shene, from Old English scīene ("beautiful, fair, bright, brilliant, light"), from Proto-Germanic *skauniz (“beautiful”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ḱoun- (“quick, dashing, beautiful”). Cognate with Dutch schoon ("clean, beautiful, fair"), German schön ("beautiful"), Danish skjøn ("beautiful"), Swedish skön ("beautiful, fine"). Extra-Germanic congnates include Albanian hir ("grace, blessing, goodwill").

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Examples

  • Because no one gives a crap about her and she doesn't have to worry about any voter retaliation if they take a definitive stance either way. orange cinema why is it that she can specifically & directly pose at least one solution to our severe economic problem, and neither of our tapdancing flip-flopping candidates can? and btw martin sheen is still a badass. blog comments powered by Disqus

    VOTD: Paris Hilton Gets Presidential with Martin Sheen | /Film 2008

  • In fact, a single drop of crude oil dropped into relatively still water in the Gulf can spread out to form a sheen the size of several football fields, even though the sheen is only a few microns thick.

    Your Right Hand Thief 2008

  • The product, at the end of the day, is a very literary, heavy on style monkeyism, story which might just have a thin sheen of SF patina on it.

    How Can Science Fiction Magazines Be Successful in the Digital Age? 2008

  • My favourite SF shows are all American, although maybe there's a certain sheen added by cultural distance.

    Thoughts on SciFi Television Lou Anders 2008

  • And when day-break dawned and the star of morn appeared in sheen and shone, he broke up the sitting and, dismissing the youths, donned his court-dress and leaving his house set out for the palace of the

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • They aren't altogether bad, but they have a certain sheen to them that looks flat and polished.

    Filmstalker: New Ghost Rider pictures 2006

  • When the morning morrowed in sheen and shone, Nur al-Din awoke from deep sleep and found that she had brought water: 484 so they made the Ghusl-ablution, he and she, and he performed that which behoved him of prayer to his Lord, after which she set before him meat and drink, and he ate and drank.

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • They aren't altogether bad, but they have a certain sheen to them that looks flat and polished.

    Filmstalker: May 2006 Archives 2006

  • When dawn broke and morn arose in sheen and shone, the Fakirs went to seek the

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

  • On her right cheek is a mole and on her waist, under her navel, is a sign; her face shines as the rondure of the moon in sheen, her waist is slight, her hips a heavy weight, and the water of her mouth the sick doth heal, as it were Kausar or

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night 2006

Comments

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  • The sun had begun to set, everything in the range of his vision was overlaid with a sheen of gold.

    - Frank Norris, The Octopus, ch. 1

    August 9, 2008

  • (v.) To party in excess. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/06/fashion/06NOTICED.html

    June 22, 2011

  • It is a good post.. like it..

    August 22, 2012