Definitions

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

  • noun A thin surface layer, as of finely grained wood, glued to a base of inferior material.
  • noun Any of the thin layers glued together to make plywood.
  • noun A decorative facing, as of brick.
  • noun A deceptive, superficial show; a façade.
  • transitive verb To overlay (a surface) with a thin layer of a fine or decorative material.
  • transitive verb To glue together (layers of wood) to make plywood.
  • transitive verb To conceal, as something common or crude, with a deceptively attractive outward show.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To overlay or face, as an inferior wood, with wood of a finer or more beautiful kind, so as to give the whole the appearance of being made of the more valuable material; cover with veneers: as, to veneer a wardrobe or other article of furniture.
  • To cover with a thin coating of substance similar to the body, in other materials than wood, as in ceramics.
  • Hence To impart a more agreeable appearance to, as to something vicious, worthless, or forbidding; disguise with a superficial attraction; gild.
  • noun A thin piece of wood of a choice kind laid upon another of a more common sort, so as to give a superior and more valuable appearance to the article so treated, as a piece of furniture.
  • noun A thin coating covering the body of anything, especially for decorative purposes: used when the material of the outer coating is similar to that of the body, as in ceramics or in paper-manufacturing.
  • noun Show; superficial ornament; meretricious disguise.
  • noun In entomology, a veneer-moth.

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

  • noun A thin leaf or layer of a more valuable or beautiful material for overlaying an inferior one, especially such a thin leaf of wood to be glued to a cheaper wood; hence, external show; gloss; false pretense.
  • noun (Zoöl.) any moth of the genus Chilo; -- so called because the mottled colors resemble those of veneering.
  • transitive verb To overlay or plate with a thin layer of wood or other material for outer finish or decoration. Used also figuratively.

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

  • noun A thin decorative covering of fine wood applied to coarser wood or other material.
  • noun An attractive appearance that covers or disguises true nature or feelings.
  • verb woodworking To apply veneer.

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

  • noun coating consisting of a thin layer of superior wood glued to a base of inferior wood
  • noun an ornamental coating to a building
  • verb cover with veneer

Etymologies

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

[Alteration of obsolete faneering, from German Furnierung, from furnieren, to furnish, veneer, from French fournir, to furnish, from Old French furnir, of Germanic origin; see per in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From German Furnier, from furnieren ("to inlay, cover with a veneer"), from French fournir ("to furnish, accomplish"), from Middle French fornir, from Old French fornir, furnir ("to furnish"), from Old Frankish *frumjan ("to provide"), from Proto-Germanic *frumjanan (“to further, promote”). Cognate with Old High German frumjan, frummen ("to accomplish, execute, provide"), Old English fremian ("to promote, perform"). More at furnish.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word veneer.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • Sounds like the letters V N E R.

    May 17, 2008

  • I like you a twenty-year old poet writes to me.

    A beginning carpenter of words.

    His letter smells of lumber.

    His muse still naps in rose wood.

    Ambitious noise in a literary sawmill.

    Apprentices veneer a gullible tongue.

    - Ewa Lipska, 'A Splinter', translated from the Polish by Robin Davidson and Ewa Elżbieta Nowakowska.

    November 10, 2008