Tarnish
/ˈtɑːrnɪʃ/noun
To lose brightness or become dull or discolored, especially on metal.
Did you know?English got *tarnish* from a French word meaning “to blacken” or “stain,” and the oldest sense was about a surface being darkened, not just “getting old.”
Etymological Timeline
Late Middle English
English
tarnishen
“to darken or stain a surface”
Old French
OF
terne
“dull, dim, dark”
Late Latin
LL
tarnire
“to darken, soil”
Proto-Indo-European
PIE
*der-
“to split, flay, peel; possibly the deeper root behind words for roughness or stripping”
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