4.3 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 11 March 2024
⏱️ 2 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 11, 2024 is:
refurbish • \rih-FER-bish\ • verb
To refurbish something is to brighten or freshen it up, or to repair and make improvements to it.
// They are refurbishing the old house with the hopes of selling it for a profit.
// The store refurbishes and sells computers that can often meet the needs of those who don't need the latest technology.
Examples:
"The city of San Diego is tasked with completing the building and replanting the interior plants, which are currently in storage. Meanwhile, the city’s not-for-profit partner Forever Balboa Park is responsible for financing and completing phase-two improvements. Those include remaking the exterior gardens, improving walkways, reconstructing the pergola that was on the west lawn and refurbishing the fountains." — Jennifer Van Grove, The San Diego Union-Tribune, 17 Jan. 2024
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.
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
0:00.0 | It's Merriam-Webster's word of the day for March 11th. |
0:11.0 | Today's word is refirbish, spelled R-E-F- H. Refurbish is a verb. To refurbish something is to |
0:20.4 | brighten or freshen it up or to repair and make improvements to it. |
0:24.8 | Here's the word you used in a sentence from the San Diego Union Tribune. The city of |
0:30.0 | San Diego is tasked with completing the building and replanting the interior plants, which are currently in storage. |
0:37.0 | Meanwhile, the city's not-for-profit partner, Forever Balboa Park, is responsible for financing and completing phase two improvements. |
0:45.8 | Those include remaking the exterior gardens, improving walkways, reconstructing the |
0:52.4 | purgola that was on the west lawn, and refurbishing the fountains. |
0:57.0 | As seems proper, given how English prefixes work, before you could refurbish something you could |
1:03.7 | furbish it. That shorter word was borrowed into middle English in the 14th |
1:08.0 | century from Anglo-French as Forbition. It shares a distant relative with the old high German verb |
1:14.8 | forben meaning to polish. In its earliest uses, Ferbish also meant to polish, but it |
1:22.2 | developed an extended sense of to renovate shortly |
1:25.1 | before English speakers created refurbish with the same meaning in the 17th century |
1:30.0 | these days refurbish is the more common of the two words, although |
1:34.8 | furbish does continue to be used. With your word of the day, I'm Peter |
1:39.0 | Sokolowski. |
1:41.8 | Visit Marion Webster. Webster.com today for definitions, wordplay, and trending word lookups. |
Transcript will be available on the free plan in -381 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Merriam-Webster, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Merriam-Webster and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.