• IPA: /ʃiːn/, enPR: shēn

From Middle English shene, schene, from Old English sċīene, from Proto-West Germanic *skaunī, from Proto-Germanic *skauniz, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kewh₁-.

Cognate with Scots schene, scheine, Saterland Frisian skeen, Western Frisian skjin, Dutch schoon, German schön, Danish skøn, Norwegian Bokmål skjønn, Norwegian Nynorsk skjønn, Swedish skön. Compare also the loanword Finnish kaunis. See also English show.

sheen (comparative sheener, superlative sheenest)

1. (rare, poetic) Beautiful, good-looking, attractive; radiant; shiny.
   • 1600, [Torquato Tasso], “(please specify |book=1 to 20)”, in Edward Fairefax [i.e., Edward Fairfax], transl., Godfrey of Bulloigne, or The Recouerie of Ierusalem. […], London: […] Ar[nold] Hatfield, for I[saac] Iaggard and M[atthew] Lownes, →OCLC ↗:

     Up rose each warrier bold and brave, / Glistening in filed steel and armor sheen.

sheen

1. (also, figuratively) Splendor; radiance; shininess.
   • 1946, Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan:

     There is a greenish sheen across the shoulders of his greasy black suit, for the morning light has of a sudden begun to dance through the bay window.

2. A thin layer of a substance (such as oil) spread on a solid or liquid surface.

   oil sheen

• French: brillance
• German: Glanz
• Italian: brillantezza, splendore
• Portuguese: brilho
• Russian: блеск
• Spanish: brillo

sheen (sheens, present participle sheening; simple past and past participle sheened)

1. (rare, intransitive, poetic) To shine; to glisten.
   • 1812, Lord Byron, “Canto I”, in Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. A Romaunt, London: Printed for John Murray, […]; William Blackwood, Edinburgh; and John Cumming, Dublin; by Thomas Davison, […], →OCLC ↗, stanza XVII:

     This town, / That, sheening far, celestial seems to be.

• French: briller
• Russian: блесте́ть

sheen (plural sheens)

1. The letter ش in the Arabic script.

From Old English Sceon, from Proto-Germanic *skūrō.

• IPA: /ʃiːn/

1. An area in Greater London, officially East Sheen.
2. A village in Staffordshire, England.
3. Surname.