frou-frou vs varnish

frou-frou

noun
  • A rustling sound, particularly the rustling of a large silk dress. 

verb
  • To move with the sound of rustling dresses. 

adj
  • Liable to create the sound of rustling cloth, similar to 19th-century dresses. 

  • Unimportant, silly, useless. 

  • Highly ornamented, overly elaborate; excessively girly. 

varnish

noun
  • A deceptively showy appearance. 

  • Anything resembling such a paint; glossy appearance. 

  • A type of paint with a solvent that evaporates to leave a hard, transparent, glossy film. 

verb
  • To make something superficially or deceptively attractive 

  • To gloss over a defect. 

  • To cover up with varnish. 

  • To apply varnish. 

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