refurbish
verb
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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
Andrew Paul, Popular Science, 15 May 2025
The grants include $65 million for Los Angeles to refurbish the Metropolitan State Hospital campus in Norwalk into a psychiatric subacute facility for transitional-age youths, a big and glaring need for the region.
—Anita Chabria, Los Angeles Times, 13 May 2025
The mass arrests, at first of mostly non-Jewish Poles, led the Nazis to construct new prison camps or refurbish existing structures, like the former military barracks in Oswiecim, Poland, which opened as the Auschwitz concentration camp in June 1940.
—Paul Hockenos, Smithsonian Magazine, 8 May 2025
Other suites are found in nearby fishing cottages, refurbished in classic modern style.
—Catherine Sabino, Forbes.com, 8 May 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 21 May. 2025.
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refurbish
verb
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