Word.ws English Dictionary

polishing off

polishing off is the present participle and gerund of polish off.

Meaning of polish off

Verb

polish off (third-person singular simple present polishes off, present participle polishing off, simple past and past participle polished off)

  1. (idiomatic) To finish completely, especially a food (polish the plate with one's tongue) or liquor.
    • They polished off the last of the cake.
    Synonyms:
    finish off
  2. To remove by polishing (rubbing with a fine abrasive).
    • White rice is rice that has had the brownish hull polished off leaving just the white inner part of the grain.

Questions about polishing off

What is polishing off the present participle and gerund of?
Polishing off is the present participle and gerund of polish off.

Words near polishing off in the dictionary

  1. polishes up
  2. polishes up on
  3. polishest
  4. polishing
  5. polishing a turd
  6. polishing off
  7. polishing one's rocket
  8. polishing slate
  9. polishing slates
  10. polishing the pearl
  11. polishing up

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: polishing off (page history and authors); polish off (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: “polishing off.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/polishing_off. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.