English

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Pronunciation

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Noun

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finery (countable and uncountable, plural fineries)

  1. (obsolete) Fineness; beauty.
  2. (countable) Ornament; decoration; especially, excessive decoration; showy clothes; jewels.
    • 1980, John A. Crow, The Epic of Latin America:
      The city also shone through the luxury of the higher castes: in the fineries of their dress, the rich manner of their living, their many servants, silver table services, and showy furnishings.
  3. fine point; minute characteristic
    • 2020, Lieven D’hulst, Kaisa Koskinen, Translating in Town:
      the translator should master the language he translates from as thoroughly as his mother tongue, knowing all its fineries
  4. (ironworking) A charcoal hearth or furnace for the conversion of cast iron into wrought iron, or into iron suitable for puddling.
    • 1957, H.R. Schubert, History of the British Iron and Steel Industry, page 160:
      In front of the finery hearth in which the sow is melted down again, the finer is working with a long iron bar called a ringer (from French 'ringard') with which he keeps the molten iron in motion by stirring, an essential stage in the process of refining.
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