sheen
/ʃiːn/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.34 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A thin layer of a substance (such as oil) spread on a solid or liquid surface.
Countable; Uncountable
name
An area of Greater London, officially East Sheen.
name
A village and civil parish in Staffordshire Moorlands district, Staffordshire, England, on the border with Derbyshire (OS grid ref SK1161).
Example Sentences
- "Up rose each warrier bold and brave, / Glistening in filed steel and armor sheen."
- "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: […]"
- "[…] Would'st hear, what dims those eyes so sheen?"
- "Where the fountains glisten sheenest […] (ch. 12)."
- "The woods, and vales were sheen as day, With light from its own living fountain; […]"
- "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."
Etymology
From 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.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: shene, sċīene, *skaunī, *skauniz, *(s)kewh₁-, Sceon