Definition of "sheen"

Where the fountains glisten sheenest […] (ch. 12).

1814, Walter Scott, Waverley

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

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

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.

1946, Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan

Mr. Leerhsen said in an interview that he wanted to write a book without the dutiful sheen of what he called “an official Bourdain product.”

2022 September 27, Kim Severson, “The Last, Painful Days of Anthony Bourdain”, in The New York Times‎

Perhaps the simplest of sauces is the pat of butter dropped on a heap of hot vegetables, or stirred into rice or noodles, or drawn across the surface of an omelet or steak to give a sheen.

2004, Harold McGee, chapter 1, in On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen

Take the floating scum or oil sheen prohibitions. A discharger or an inspector simply can look to see if scum, or an oil sheen, is coming from a particular discharge. Assume an oil sheen begins at a discharge—is the sheen caused by that […]

2017, Jeffrey Miller, Ann Powers, Introduction to Environmental Law: Cases and Materials on Water Pollution Control, West Academic

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

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, […], stanza XVII