Blanch

//blɑːnt͡ʃ// name, verb

name, verb ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To grow or become white. intransitive

    "His cheek blanched with fear."

  2. 2
    To avoid, as from fear; to evade; to leave unnoticed.

    "Ifs and ands to qualify words of treason; whereby every man might express his malice, and blanch his danger."

  3. 3
    turn pale, as if in fear wordnet
  4. 4
    To take the color out of, and make white; to bleach. transitive

    "to blanch linen"

  5. 5
    To cause to turn aside or back.

    "to blanch a deer"

Show 9 more definitions
  1. 6
    cook (vegetables) briefly wordnet
  2. 7
    To cook by dipping briefly into boiling water, then directly into cold water. transitive
  3. 8
    To use evasion.

    "Books will speak plain, when counsellors blanch."

  4. 9
    To whiten, for example the surface of meat, by plunging into boiling water and afterwards into cold, so as to harden the surface and retain the juices. transitive
  5. 10
    To bleach by excluding light, for example the stalks or leaves of plants by earthing them up or tying them together. transitive
  6. 11
    To make white by removing the skin of, for example by scalding. transitive

    "to blanch almonds"

  7. 12
    To give a white lustre to (silver, before stamping, in the process of coining) transitive
  8. 13
    To cover (sheet iron) with a coating of tin. intransitive
  9. 14
    To give a favorable appearance to; to whitewash; to whiten; figuratively, transitive

    "c. 1680, John Tillotson, The indispensable necessity of the knowledge of the Holy Scripture Blanch over the blackest and most absurd things."

Proper Noun
  1. 1
    A female given name from French, a less common spelling of Blanche.

    "That daughter there of Spain, the Lady Blanch, / Is near to England: look upon the years / Of Lewis the Dauphin and the lovely maid. / If lusty love should go in quest of beauty, / Where should he find it fairer than in Blanch?"

Synonyms

All synonyms
paleacheachromatizeagonizeailanguish

Example

More examples

"Yet hist! faint eerie tones are sometimes heard — which blanch the cheek and palsy all the limbs — like to the moaning of departed souls!"

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English blaunchen, from Old French blanchir, from Old French blanc (“white”), from Early Medieval Latin blancus, from Frankish *blank, from Proto-Germanic *blankaz (“bright, shining, blinding, white”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰleyǵ- (“to shine”). Cognates Cognate with blench (“to deceive, to trick”) through Proto-Indo-European, whence other etymology of blanch.

Etymology 2

Variant of blench, of same Proto-Indo-European origin.

Related phrases

blanch upblanched almond

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.