buff vs burnish

buff

verb
  • To polish and make shiny by rubbing. 

  • To strike. 

  • To make a character or an item stronger. 

  • To modify a medical chart, especially in a dishonest manner. 

noun
  • Any substance used to dilute (street) drugs in order to increase profits. 

  • Undyed leather from the skin of buffalo or similar animals. 

  • A military coat made of buff leather. 

  • A buffalo, or the meat of a buffalo. 

  • The greyish viscid substance constituting the buffy coat. 

  • Compressive coupler force that occurs during a slack bunched condition. 

  • A brownish yellow colour. 

  • A tool, often one covered with buff leather, used for polishing. 

  • A person who is very interested in a particular subject. 

  • An effect that makes a character or item stronger. 

  • The bare skin. 

adj
  • Of the color of buff leather, a brownish yellow. 

  • Physically attractive. 

  • Unusually muscular. 

burnish

verb
  • To make (something, such as a surface) bright, shiny, and smooth by, or (by extension) as if by, rubbing; to polish, to shine. 

  • Of a thing: to increase in size; to expand, to spread out, to swell. 

  • To appear positive and highly respected. 

  • To become bright, glossy, and smooth; to brighten, to gleam, to shine forth. 

  • Of a person's body: to grow large or stout; to fatten, to fill out. 

  • Of a stag: to remove the velvet (“skin and fine fur”) from (its antlers) by rubbing them against something; to velvet. 

  • To make (someone or something) appear positive and highly respected. 

noun
  • A shiny layer applied to a surface or other thing. 

  • The making of something bright, shiny, and smooth by, or (by extension) as if by, rubbing; (countable) an instance of this; a burnishing, a polishing, a shining. 

  • A shine of something which has been polished; a lustre, a polish. 

How often have the words buff and burnish occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )