refurbish
verb
Did you know?
As seems proper given how English prefixes work, before you could refurbish something you could furbish it. That shorter word was borrowed into Middle English in the 14th century from Anglo-French as furbisshen; it shares a distant relative with the Old High German verb furben, meaning "to polish." In its earliest uses furbish also meant "to polish," but it developed an extended sense of "to renovate" shortly before English speakers created refurbish with the same meaning in the 17th century. These days refurbish is the more common of the two words, although furbish does continue to be used.
Examples of refurbish in a Sentence
Sandra Salibian, Footwear News, 16 Apr. 2025
The space agency does not want to have to find retirees who worked on the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft decades ago to work to try to refurbish one of them.
—Eric Berger, ArsTechnica, 16 Apr. 2025
Floating Hawaiʻi ceremony and are refurbished for reuse each year.
—Gary Stoller, Forbes.com, 15 Apr. 2025
Both ships have been refurbished, and will sail popular and lesser-visited ports within North America.
—Nathan Diller, USA Today, 6 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for refurbish
Cite this Entry
“Refurbish.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/refurbish. Accessed 1 May. 2025.
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refurbish
verb
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