English Dictionary |
UNVARNISHED
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Dictionary entry overview: What does unvarnished mean?
• UNVARNISHED (adjective)
The adjective UNVARNISHED has 2 senses:
1. not having a coating of stain or varnish
2. free from any effort to soften to disguise
Familiarity information: UNVARNISHED used as an adjective is rare.
Dictionary entry details
Sense 1
Meaning:
Not having a coating of stain or varnish
Synonyms:
unstained; unvarnished
Similar:
unpainted (not having a coat of paint or badly in need of a fresh coat)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Free from any effort to soften to disguise
Synonyms:
plain; unvarnished
Context example:
the unvarnished candor of old people and children
Similar:
direct (straightforward in means or manner or behavior or language or action)
Context examples
Arraigned at my own bar, Memory having given her evidence of the hopes, wishes, sentiments I had been cherishing since last night—of the general state of mind in which I had indulged for nearly a fortnight past; Reason having come forward and told, in her own quiet way a plain, unvarnished tale, showing how I had rejected the real, and rabidly devoured the ideal;—I pronounced judgment to this effect:—That a greater fool than Jane Eyre had never breathed the breath of life; that a more fantastic idiot had never surfeited herself on sweet lies, and swallowed poison as if it were nectar.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
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