Blench

//blɛnt͡ʃ// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A deceit; a trick.
  2. 2
    A sidelong glance.

    "These blenches gave my heart another youth."

Verb
  1. 1
    To shrink; start back; give way; flinch; turn aside or fly off. intransitive

    "Blench not at thy chosen lot."

  2. 2
    To blanch. obsolete

    "The seasons are come to a stagnant stop, the trees blench and wither, the wagons role in the mica ruts with slithering harplike thuds."

  3. 3
    turn pale, as if in fear wordnet
  4. 4
    To quail. intransitive
  5. 5
    To deceive; cheat. transitive
Show 3 more definitions
  1. 6
    To draw back from; shrink; avoid; elude; deny, as from fear. transitive

    "Yesterday the government proclaimed no turning back, but the lords representing the likes of the disability charity Scope or Macmillan Cancer Support should make them blench."

  2. 7
    To hinder; obstruct; disconcert; foil. transitive
  3. 8
    To fly off; to turn aside. intransitive

    "Though sometimes you do blench from this to that."

Synonyms

All synonyms
acheagonizeailanguishavoidblanch

Example

More examples

"This painful, heroic task he undertook, and never blenched from its fulfilment."

Etymology

Etymology 1

From Middle English blench and blenchen, from Old English blenċan (“to deceive, cheat”), from Proto-Germanic *blankijaną (“to deceive”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰleyǵ-. Cognate with Icelandic blekkja (“to deceive, cheat, impose upon”).

Etymology 2

From Old French blanchir (“to bleach”).

Related phrases

give way

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