Veneered

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Covered on the surface with a thin, attractive layer of material such as wood or plastic
2. Having an outer layer applied to improve appearance or to imitate a more expensive material
3. To have a fine, superficial coating added for decorative or protective purposes

Etymology: The verb "veneered" is the past tense of "veneer", and the noun's story is a surprising one. Its ancestor is the French verb "fournir", meaning "to furnish" or "to accomplish", a word that has nothing to do with thin decorative surfaces on its face. Through Old French and Middle French, it reached German as "furnieren", meaning "to inlay" or "to cover with a veneer", and the German noun "Furnier" came from that. English borrowed the word back from German, so a term for the thin sheet of fine wood glued over cheaper material carries a French idea of supplying and finishing, filtered through a German trade word. The deeper roots run back to Old Frankish "frumjan", "to provide", and the Proto-Germanic "*frumjaną", "to further, promote". Old English had a cousin, "fremian", meaning "to promote or perform", so the same family of meanings survives in English in a different word. The veneer's original job was to furnish a finished surface, which is why the sense of covering something to improve its appearance grew naturally from it.

Synonyms: coated, laminated, overlayed, wrapped, covered

Antonyms: exposed, revealed, uncovered, naked, bare