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Polished vs Refined - What's the difference?

polished | refined |

As adjectives the difference between polished and refined

is that polished is made smooth or shiny by polishing while refined is showing or having good feelings or good taste.

As verbs the difference between polished and refined

is that polished is past tense of polish while refined is past tense of refine.

polished

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Made smooth or shiny by polishing.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham)
    • , title=(The China Governess) , chapter=Foreword citation , passage=A very neat old woman, still in her good outdoor coat and best beehive hat, was sitting at a polished mahogany table on whose surface there were several scored scratches so deep that a triangular piece of the veneer had come cleanly away,
  • Refined, elegant.
  • *
  • *
    • She was frankly disappointed. For some reason she had thought to discover a burglar of one or another accepted type—either a dashing cracksman in full-blown evening dress, lithe, polished , pantherish, or a common yegg, a red-eyed, unshaven burly brute in the rags and tatters of a tramp.

    Derived terms

    * impolished * perpolished * polishedly * polishedness * unpolished * well-polished

    Verb

    (head)
  • (polish)

    • Anagrams

    *

    refined

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Showing or having good feelings or good taste.
  • *{{quote-book, year=1922, author=(Ben Travers)
    • , chapter=5, title= A Cuckoo in the Nest , passage=The most rapid and most seductive transition in all human nature is that which attends the palliation of a ravenous appetite.
  • An absence of coarseness.
  • Not vulgar.
  • Without impurities.

    • Verb

    (head)
  • (refine)
    • The raw petroleum was refined into kerosene.

    Anagrams

    *