refurbish
verb
Did you know?
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
Prabhat Ranjan Mishra, Interesting Engineering, 25 Jan. 2026
Driscoll along with Healey was also part of a sham awarding of a nearly $1 billion contract to the Irish firm Applegreen to refurbish the state highway service areas.
—Joe Battenfeld, Boston Herald, 22 Jan. 2026
There is also a drive by landlords of Class B office buildings, which still have high vacancies, to refurbish their properties in order to attract new tenants.
—Diana Olick, CNBC, 22 Jan. 2026
The delay compounds last May’s setback, when the city of Dallas informed the Wings that Memorial Auditorium downtown won’t be refurbished in time to host WNBA games until 2027, a year later than planned.
—Brad Townsend, Dallas Morning News, 15 Jan. 2026
See All Example Sentences for refurbish
Cite this Entry
“Refurbish.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/refurbish. Accessed 1 Feb. 2026.
Copy CitationKids Definition
refurbish
verb
