lacquer
Americannoun
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lacquers
plural
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a protective coating consisting of a resin, cellulose ester, or both, dissolved in a volatile solvent, sometimes with pigment added.
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any of various resinous varnishes, especially a resinous varnish obtained from a Japanese tree, Rhus verniciflua, used to produce a highly polished, lustrous surface on wood or the like.
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Also called lacquerware. Also called lacquer ware,. ware, especially of wood, coated with such a varnish, and often inlaid.
They collected fine Japanese lacquers.
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Slang. any volatile solvent that produces euphoria when inhaled.
verb (used with object)
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lacquers,
present (3rd person singular)
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lacquered,
past participle, past
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lacquering
present participle
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to coat with lacquer.
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to cover, as with facile or fluent words or explanations cleverly worded, etc.; obscure the faults of; gloss (often followed byover ).
The speech tended to lacquer over the terrible conditions.
noun
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a hard glossy coating made by dissolving cellulose derivatives or natural resins in a volatile solvent
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a black resinous substance, obtained from certain trees, used to give a hard glossy finish to wooden furniture
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Also called: varnish tree. an E Asian anacardiaceous tree, Rhus verniciflua, whose stem yields a toxic exudation from which black lacquer is obtained
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Also called: hair lacquer. a mixture of shellac and alcohol for spraying onto the hair to hold a style in place
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art decorative objects coated with such lacquer, often inlaid
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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lacquersimple
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lacquerssimple
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have lacqueredperfect
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has lacqueredperfect
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am lacqueringprogressive
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are lacqueringprogressive
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is lacqueringprogressive
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have been lacqueringperfect progressive
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has been lacqueringperfect progressive
Past
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lacqueredsimple
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had lacqueredperfect
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was lacqueringprogressive
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were lacqueringprogressive
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had been lacqueringperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of lacquer
1570–80; earlier leckar, laker < Portuguese lacre, lacar, unexplained variant of laca < Arabic lakk < Persian lâk lac 1
Explanation
Lacquer is a clear liquid that is painted on a surface and dries hard and shiny. Lacquer can be used to protect wood. Wooden furniture or art objects made from wood are sometimes coated with lacquer. The lacquer makes the wood glossy and protects it from scratches and nicks. In Eastern Asia, there is a tradition of making decorative objects called "lacquerware," boxes, buttons, and other items that are made of wood and coated in lacquer. Lacquer comes from a now-obsolete French word, lacre, a type of sealing wax, and is ultimately rooted in the Sanskrit laksha, "red dye."
Vocabulary lists containing lacquer
Clean Getaway
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The Red Pony
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The Fault in Our Stars
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The Georgian-style, brick and stone home offers an array of gorgeous details, like glossy wood and stone floors, red lacquer walls in the formal dining room, and numerous fireplaces.
From MarketWatch ● Mar. 25, 2026
The barrels -- bound tightly with rope, their fabric skins stiffened and darkened with lacquer -- inevitably recall the Gulf's vast hydrocarbon wealth.
From Barron's ● Feb. 16, 2026
Ms. Kondo illustrates mottainai through art forms that evolved from the spirit of preservation—including kintsugi, or the painstaking process of repairing broken pottery with a combination of lacquer and gold.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 12, 2025
Instead, he seems as if he’s trying to lacquer on a veneer of righteousness to some very nasty business.
From Slate ● Nov. 20, 2025
When the operator finally rang her room, she was sitting on the window seat and had almost finished putting lacquer on the nails of her left hand.
From "Nine Stories" by J. D. Salinger
Coating fossils with varnishes and/or lacquers was the norm in the past and sometimes is still necessary to preserve a fossil specimen in museum cabinets and exhibits.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 16, 2024
In his recent sculptures, Hartenstein has been incorporating a cerulean pigment developed in the G.D.R. for industrial lacquers, which he recalls seeing his grandfather use for carpentry.
From New York Times ● Feb. 13, 2023
"Freddie was brilliant because he could score more with fewer tiles," Taylor said, but Brian May held the band's record for best word: "lacquers," with the Q on the triple points square.
From Salon ● Oct. 9, 2021
She mixes marmalade into compound butters, slips stone-fruit preserves into a marinade or on top of a pizza, and lacquers chicken wings with apricot jam.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 4, 2019
The strong odor of the colored lacquers can be smelled out on the sidewalk, even with the door shut.
From "Counting by 7s" by Holly Goldberg Sloan
TAICHUNG, Taiwan—The first course arrived on a miniature lacquered rack, the kind you’d expect to hold ink brushes in a scholar’s studio.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 1, 2026
Kale and bok choy with their cool, lacquered leaves.
From Salon ● Mar. 1, 2026
The listing adds, “The custom lacquered kitchen, finished in rich Aegean blue with bronze accents and Calacatta marble, is as functional as it is striking.”
From MarketWatch ● Nov. 10, 2025
Ten feet tall and made of black lacquered wood decorated with gold, the shrine was carried in the Nisei Week Festival parade in Little Tokyo in August 1960, The Times reported.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 15, 2024
Wind whistling up through the jagged gash in the floor kept the myriad bits of paper circulating like alabaster particles in a paperweight and contributed to a sensation of lacquered, waterlogged unreality.
From "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller
As I wrote in a recent article, I'm a proponent of lacquering bacon with the sweet-and-savory combo of maple syrup and white miso, which is the perfect complement to its salty, pork-y, smoky essence.
From Salon ● Jan. 26, 2023
He works on multiple tigers at a time and employs two or three people to help with sanding, lacquering and finishing tasks, he said.
From Reuters ● Jan. 25, 2022
“Manolo will be in the kitchen cooking his wonderful cuisine, and I’ll be in the larder, lacquering my Louis Vuitton cases with yacht varnish, bringing them to a high shine,” he tells me.
From The Guardian ● May 23, 2020
Try snipping locks or lacquering nails at the recommended safe distance of six feet.
From Washington Post ● Apr. 3, 2020
Bridget sat on the toilet lid, lacquering her nails with ballet pink, the radio perched behind her on top of the tank.
From "The Line Tender" by Kate Allen
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
