TARNISH

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does tarnish mean? 

• TARNISH (noun)
  The noun TARNISH has 1 sense:

1. discoloration of metal surface caused by oxidation

  Familiarity information: TARNISH used as a noun is very rare.

• TARNISH (verb)
  The verb TARNISH has 1 sense:

1. make dirty or spotty, as by exposure to air; also used metaphorically

  Familiarity information: TARNISH used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• TARNISH (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Discoloration of metal surface caused by oxidation

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Hypernyms ("tarnish" is a kind of...):

discoloration; discolouration; stain (a soiled or discolored appearance)

Derivation:

tarnish (make dirty or spotty, as by exposure to air; also used metaphorically)

• TARNISH (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they tarnish    ... he / she / it tarnishes   
Past simple: tarnished   
Past participle: tarnished   
-ing form: tarnishing   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Make dirty or spotty, as by exposure to air; also used metaphorically

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Synonyms:

defile; maculate; stain; sully; tarnish

Context example:

Her reputation was sullied after the affair with a married man

Hypernyms (to "tarnish" is one way to...):

blob; blot; fleck; spot (make a spot or mark onto)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "tarnish"):

darken (tarnish or stain)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Derivation:

tarnish (discoloration of metal surface caused by oxidation)

 Context examples 

Elizabeth also wept and was unhappy, but hers also was the misery of innocence, which, like a cloud that passes over the fair moon, for a while hides but cannot tarnish its brightness.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

I thought you a broken toy that had lasted its time; a worthless spangle that was tarnished, and thrown away.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

He had picked from a drawer a little tarnished cylinder, and, undoing the tape, he handed me a short note scrawled upon a half-sheet of slate-grey paper.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The lock was silver, though tarnished from age; at each end were the imperfect remains of handles also of silver, broken perhaps prematurely by some strange violence; and, on the centre of the lid, was a mysterious cipher, in the same metal.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

The tomb in the day-time, and when wreathed with fresh flowers, had looked grim and gruesome enough; but now, some days afterwards, when the flowers hung lank and dead, their whites turning to rust and their greens to browns; when the spider and the beetle had resumed their accustomed dominance; when time-discoloured stone, and dust-encrusted mortar, and rusty, dank iron, and tarnished brass, and clouded silver-plating gave back the feeble glimmer of a candle, the effect was more miserable and sordid than could have been imagined.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

The second waiter informed me, in a whisper, that this old gentleman was a retired conveyancer living in the Square, and worth a mint of money, which it was expected he would leave to his laundress's daughter; likewise that it was rumoured that he had a service of plate in a bureau, all tarnished with lying by, though more than one spoon and a fork had never yet been beheld in his chambers by mortal vision.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)