varnish

Other forms of varnish

plural

varnishes·

past tense

varnished·

present participle

varnishing·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about varnish

What does varnish mean?

varnish means "a coating that provides a hard, lustrous, transparent finish to a surface". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in varnish?

varnish has 2 syllables: var-nish. The stress falls on "var". In IPA it is /ˈvɑɹnɪʃ/.

What is another word for varnish?

Close synonyms include seal. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is varnish a common word?

varnish is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.