Word.ws English Dictionary

French polishing

French polishing noun: a wood finishing technique that uses French polish to produce a glossy surface. Also the present participle and gerund of French polish.

Noun

French polishing (uncountable)

  1. A wood finishing technique that uses French polish to produce a glossy surface.
    • “Cooking, chambermaiding, maintenance, running the farm shop. And while we don’t have employed staff, we have a network of local tradesmen — roofing, plumbing, French polishing, a limesmith, a cabinet maker,” he trailed on with more chores.2023 March 22, Ben West, “This 835-Year-Old English Manor Needs Some Modern Love”, in The New York Times

Also used as

French polishing is also the present participle and gerund of French polish.

Origin of French polishing

From French polish + -ing.

Questions about French polishing

What does French polishing mean?
French polishing means a wood finishing technique that uses French polish to produce a glossy surface.
What part of speech is French polishing?
French polishing is a noun.

Words near French polishing in the dictionary

  1. French polish
  2. French polished
  3. French polisher
  4. French polishers
  5. French polishes
  6. French polishing
  7. French Polynesia
  8. French Polynesian
  9. French Polynesians
  10. French pox
  11. French Prairie

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: French polishing (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “French polishing.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/french_polishing. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.