varnishment

English

Etymology

varnish +‎ -ment

Noun

varnishment (countable and uncountable, plural varnishments)

1. (archaic) The act or process of embellishing something in order to make it more attractive.
   • 1815, Sir Egerton Brydges, Archaica: Containing a Reprint of Scarce Old English Prose Tracts, page 132:

     The print of my finger thou hast defaced, and with arts-vanishing varnishment made thyself a changeling from the form I first cast thee in; Satan take her to thee, with black boiling pitch rough-cast over her counterfeit red and white; and whereas she was wont in ass's milk to bathe her to engrain her skin more gentle, pliant, delicate and supple, in bubbling scalding lead, and fatty flame-feeding brimstone see thou unceasingly bathe her.

   • 1849, T.T. Campbell, “Antagonism”, in The United Counties Miscellany:

     You cataracts and hurricanoes spout,' until ye have swept away all hypocrisies and impostures from the face of the earth; have demolished all counterfeit truths, and lying pretences; have drenched through and through the glossy varnishments and starched fineries of mock righteousness; have stripped the vizard from every sham, rent every flimsy cobweb, and purged every loathsome evil!

   • 1858, Matthew Mather, Thoughts and Suggestions Relative to the Management of Barony Parochial Board and Poor-House:

     In this work no cases are fictitious, for I wish not to palm upon the public anything like a novel: my aim is to exhibit character, as it really exists, without undue varnishment, and attempt to rouse the public mind from its lethargic state, and cause thought to be exercised upon what libertinism really is, how it so often ends in madness, but is always monomanical in its early development.

   • 1916, The Editorial - Volume 1, page 56:

     The public speaker of today who gets nearest his audience is one who has something to say and who says it without ebullition, without varnishment, without rhapsodic figures of speech, without flower and embellishment.

   • 1966, The Double Dealer - Volumes 3-4, page 230:

     If the dear people want sex, give the dear people sex. But not by suggestion, innuendo, varnishment.

   • 1969, K. T. Wills, Vanozza: A Novel of the Enigmatical Borgias of the Renaissance:

     The New World was experiencing the cruelties of many of these mercenary adventurers whose religious medals, Crucifixes and Rosary mumblings were varnishments of a ferocious quest for gold.

   • 2003, Judith A. Ranta, The Life and Writings of Betsey Chamberlain: Native American Mill Worker, →ISBN:

     It had once been painted, but the rain and the snow had now denuded it of all such outward varnishment, and without any spire or porch, it was simple enough in its exterior for a Quaker tabernacle.