the art of smoothing or polishing a metallic body, by a brisk rubbing of it with a burnisher.

Book-binders burnish the edges of their books, by rubbing them with a dog's tooth. Gold and silver are burnished, by rubbing them with a wolf's tooth, or by the bloody stone, or by tripoli, a piece of white wood, emery, and the like. Deer are said to burnish their heads, by rubbing off a downy white skin from their horns, against a tree.