Adjacent Words

Blanch definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

BL'ANCH, v.t.
1. To whiten; to take out the color, and make white; to obliterate.
2. To slur; to balk; to pass over; that is to avoid; to make empty.
3. To strip or peel; as, to blanch almonds.
BL'ANCH, v.i. To evade; to shift; to speak softly.
Rather, to fail or withhold; to be reserved; to remain blank, or empty.
Books will speak plain, when counselors blanch.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

v
1: turn pale, as if in fear [syn: pale, blanch, blench]
2: cook (vegetables) briefly; "Parboil the beans before freezing them" [syn: blanch, parboil]

Merriam Webster's

verb Etymology: Middle English blaunchen, from Anglo-French blanchir, from blanc, adjective, white — more at blank Date: 15th century transitive verb to take the color out of: as a. to bleach by excluding light b. to scald or parboil in water or steam in order to remove the skin from, whiten, or stop enzymatic action in (as food for freezing) c. to make ashen or pale <fear blanches the cheek> intransitive verb to become white or pale • blancher noun

Oxford Reference Dictionary

v. 1 tr. make white or pale by extracting colour. 2 intr. & tr. grow or make pale from shock, fear, etc. 3 tr. Cookery a peel (almonds etc.) by scalding. b immerse (vegetables or meat) briefly in boiling water. 4 tr. whiten (a plant) by depriving it of light. Phrases and idioms: blanch over give a deceptively good impression of (a fault etc.) by misrepresentation. Etymology: ME f. OF blanchir f. blanc white, BLANK

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Blanch Blanch, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Blanched; p. pr. & vb. n. Blanching.] [OE. blanchen, blaunchen, F. blanchir, fr. blanc white. See Blank, a.] 1. To take the color out of, and make white; to bleach; as, to blanch linen; age has blanched his hair. 2. (Gardening) To bleach by excluding the light, as the stalks or leaves of plants, by earthing them up or tying them together. 3. (Confectionery & Cookery) (a) To make white by removing the skin of, as by scalding; as, to blanch almonds. (b) To whiten, as the surface of meat, by plunging into boiling water and afterwards into cold, so as to harden the surface and retain the juices. 4. To give a white luster to (silver, before stamping, in the process of coining.). 5. To cover (sheet iron) with a coating of tin. 6. Fig.: To whiten; to give a favorable appearance to; to whitewash; to palliate. Blanch over the blackest and most absurd things. --Tillotson. Syn: To Blanch, Whiten. Usage: To whiten is the generic term, denoting, to render white; as, to whiten the walls of a room. Usually (though not of necessity) this is supposed to be done by placing some white coloring matter in or upon the surface of the object in question. To blanch is to whiten by the removal of coloring matter; as, to blanch linen. So the cheek is blanched by fear, i. e., by the withdrawal of the blood, which leaves it white.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Blanch Blanch, v. i. To use evasion. [Obs.] Books will speak plain, when counselors blanch. --Bacon.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Blanch Blanch, n. (Mining) Ore, not in masses, but mixed with other minerals.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Blanch Blanch, v. i. To grow or become white; as, his cheek blanched with fear; the rose blanches in the sun. [Bones] blanching on the grass. --Tennyson.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Blanch Blanch, v. t. [See Blench.] 1. To avoid, as from fear; to evade; to leave unnoticed. [Obs.] Ifs and ands to qualify the words of treason, whereby every man might express his malice and blanch his danger. --Bacon. I suppose you will not blanch Paris in your way. --Reliq. Wot. 2. To cause to turn aside or back; as, to blanch a deer.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(blanches, blanching, blanched) 1. If you blanch, you suddenly become very pale. His face blanched as he looked at Sharpe's blood-drenched uniform... She felt herself blanch at the unpleasant memories. VERB: V, V at n 2. If you say that someone blanches at something, you mean that they find it unpleasant and do not want to be involved with it. Everything he had said had been a mistake. He blanched at his miscalculations... VERB: V at n 3. If you blanch vegetables, fruit, or nuts, you put them into boiling water for a short time, usually in order to remove their skins, or to prepare them for freezing. Skin the peaches by blanching them. VERB: V n

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

I. v. a. Bleach, whiten, etiolate, make or render white. II. v. n. Bleach, whiten, pale, etiolate, become white, fade.

Moby Thesaurus

ache, achromatize, agonize, ail, anguish, bake, barbecue, baste, besnow, bleach, bleach out, blench, blush, boil, braise, brew, broil, brown, chalk, change color, coddle, color, cook, crimson, curry, darken, decolor, decolorize, devil, dim, discolor, do, do to perfection, drain, drain of color, dull, etiolate, fade, fade out, feel pain, feel the pangs, fire, flinch, flush, fricassee, frizz, frizzle, frost, fry, fume, glow, griddle, grill, grimace, grizzle, grow pale, have a misery, heat, hurt, look black, lose color, mantle, oven-bake, pale, pan, pan-broil, parboil, peroxide, poach, pound, prepare, prepare food, quail, redden, roast, saute, scallop, sear, shirr, shoot, shrink, silver, simmer, smart, squinch, start, steam, stew, stir-fry, suffer, tarnish, thrill, throb, tone down, turn color, turn pale, turn red, turn white, twinge, twitch, wan, wash out, white, whiten, wince, writhe