Definition
adjBeautiful, good-looking, attractive; radiant; shiny.
adjBeautiful, good-looking, attractive, fair; bright, radiant; shiny.
Sentence Examples
The thin layer of oil at the top of the soup produced a mesmerizing sheen.
Asked if he was bipolar, Charlie Sheen replied that he was "bi-winning."
Word Origin & History
From Middle English shene, schene, from Old English sċīene (“beautiful, fair, bright, brilliant, light”), from Proto-West Germanic *skaunī, from Proto-Germanic *skauniz (“beautiful”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kewh₁-.
Cognate with Scots schene, scheine (“beautiful, fair, attractive”), Saterland Frisian skeen (“clean, pure”), West Frisian skjin (“nice, clean”), Dutch schoon (“clean, beautiful, fair”), German schön (“beautiful”), Danish skøn (“beautiful”), Norwegian Bokmål skjønn (“beautiful”), Norwegian Nynorsk skjønn (“beautiful”), Swedish skön (“beautiful, fine”). Compare also the loanword Finnish kaunis (“beautiful”). See also English show.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Up rose each warrier bold and brave, / Glistening in filed steel and armor sheen."
— 1600, [Torquato Tasso], “(please specify |book=1 to 20)”, in Edward Fairefax [i.e., Edward Fairfax], transl., Godfrey of Bulloigne, or The Recouerie of Ierusalem. […], London: […] Ar[nold] Hatfield, for I[saac] Iaggard and M[atthew] Lownes, →OCLC:
"The doleful Dumps I sing, and tearful Woes,
Of Marian teeming with unlawful Throes:
The sheenest Lass in Berkshire was she known,
Of all that Butter fell to Reading Town: […]"
— 1741, The London Magazine, and Monthly Chronologer, page 430:
"[…] Would'st hear, what dims those eyes so sheen?"
— 1811, La Belle Assemblée, page 44:
"Where the fountains glisten sheenest […] (ch. 12)."
— 1814, Walter Scott, Waverley:
"The woods, and vales were sheen as day,
With light from its own living fountain; […]"
— 1877, James Sharp, The Captive King and Other Poems, page 218: