Adjacent Words

shellac definitions

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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: lac purified by heating and filtering; usually in thin orange or yellow flakes but sometimes bleached white
2: a thin varnish made by dissolving lac in ethanol; used to finish wood [syn: shellac, shellac varnish] v
1: cover with shellac; "She wanted to shellac the desk to protect it from water spots" [syn: shellac, shellack]

Merriam Webster's

I. noun Etymology: ¹shell + lac Date: 1704 1. purified lac usually prepared in thin orange or yellow flakes by heating and filtering and often bleached white 2. a preparation of lac dissolved usually in alcohol and used chiefly as a wood filler and finish 3. a. a composition containing shellac formerly used for making phonograph records b. an old 78 rpm phonograph record II. transitive verb (shellacked; shellacking) Date: 1876 1. to coat or otherwise treat with shellac or a shellac varnish 2. to defeat decisively

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. & v. --n. lac resin melted into thin flakes and used for making varnish (cf. LAC(1)). --v.tr. (shellacked, shellacking) 1 varnish with shellac. 2 US sl. defeat or thrash soundly. Etymology: SHELL + LAC, transl. F laque en écailles lac in thin plates

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Shell-lac Shell"-lac`, Shellac Shel"lac`, n. [Shell + lac a resinous substance; cf. D. shellak, G. schellack.] See the Note under 2d Lac.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

Shellac is a kind of natural varnish which you paint on to wood to give it a shiny surface.

Moby Thesaurus

apply paint, beat, bedaub, bedizen, begild, besmear, blank, brush on paint, bulldoze, calcimine, clobber, coat, color, complexion, cover, cream, dab, daub, deep-dye, defeat utterly, dip, distemper, double-dye, drub, dye, emblazon, enamel, engild, face, fast-dye, fresco, gild, glaze, gloss, grain, hue, illuminate, imbue, ingrain, japan, lacquer, lambaste, lay on color, lick, overbear, overwhelm, paint, parget, paste, pigment, prime, schmear, shade, shadow, shut out, skunk, slop on paint, smear, smother, snow under, stain, steamroller, stipple, thrash, tinct, tincture, tinge, tint, tone, trim, undercoat, varnish, wash, whelm, whitewash, whomp, whop