Eggcorn Forum

Have you noticed how often “refurnish” and “refurbish” are confused? To refurnish means to provide with new furniture. To refurbish means to clean, restore, redecorate, repair. “Refurbish” is formed from “furbish,”¹ which is derived from an old Teutonic root meaning to polish, shine, brighten.

The meaning of “refurnish” is a subset of the meaning of “refurbish”–when we refurnish a house, we refurbish it–so it is difficult to detect substitutions of “refurbish” for “refurnish.” But switching these words in the other direction (“refurbish -> refurnish”) often results in a semantic failure that flags the error. When we refurnish something, for example, that does not have room for furniture (a lamp, a table), chances are we are substituting “refurnish” for “refurbish.” Some examples are below.

A third word needs to be thrown into the mix. In the last two of the examples, “refurnish” may be an error for “refinish.”

Frequency: moderate. Four examples:

Weapons bulletin board post: “I always assumed that you’d use a parts kit to refurnish an old gun (or the receiver of an old gun)”

Aquarium forum: “I recently got the finances to refurnish an old 40 gallon tank that was lieing in my basement.”

Obit: “He moves into his new house and decides to refurnish an old desk out on the concrete deck.”

Blog entry: “they are now facing the sacrificial taxation of their own savings in order to refurnish a table stripped bare by prodigals”

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¹ Another lost radical. “Furbish” was good English coin until the beginning of the twentieth century.