/ʃiːn/
OriginFrom Middle English shene, schene, from Old English sċīene (“beautiful, fair, bright, brilliant, light”), from Proto-West Germanic *skaunī, from Proto-Germanic *skauniz (“beautiful”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kewh₁-.
Cognate with Scots schene, scheine (“beautiful, fair, attractive”), Saterland Frisian skeen (“clean, pure”), West Frisian skjin (“nice, clean”), Dutch schoon (“clean, beautiful, fair”), German schön (“beautiful”), Danish skøn (“beautiful”), Norwegian Bokmål skjønn (“beautiful”), Norwegian Nynorsk skjønn (“beautiful”), Swedish skön (“beautiful, fine”). Compare also the loanword Finnish kaunis (“beautiful”). See also English show.
- poetic, rareBeautiful, good-looking, attractive; radiant; shiny.
“Up rose each warrier bold and brave, / Glistening in filed steel and armor sheen.”
“Where the fountains glisten sheenest […] (ch. 12).”
- also, countable, figuratively, uncountableSplendor; radiance; shininess.
“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.”
“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.””
- countable, uncountableA thin layer of a substance (such as oil) spread on a solid or liquid surface.
“oil sheen”
“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.”
“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 d”
- The letter ش in the Arabic script.
- intransitive, poetic, rareTo shine; to glisten.
“This town, / That, sheening far, celestial seems to be.”
- An area of Greater London, officially East Sheen.
- A village and civil parish in Staffordshire Moorlands district, Staffordshire, England, on the border with Derbyshire (OS grid ref SK1161).
- A surname.
Formssheener(comparative) · sheenest(superlative) · sheens(plural) · sheens(present, singular, third-person) · sheening(participle, present) · sheened(participle, past) · sheened(past)