blanch

• Rhymes: -ɑːntʃ

From Old French blanchir, from Old French blanc (“white”), from Late Latin, Vulgar Latin *blancus, from Proto-Germanic *blankaz (“bright, shining, blinding, white”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰleyǵ- (“to shine”). Cognate with blench (“to deceive, to trick”) through Proto-Indo-European, whence other etymology of blanch.

blanch (third-person singular simple present blanches, present participle blanching, simple past and past participle blanched)

1. (intransitive) To grow or become white

   His cheek blanched with fear.

   The rose blanches in the sun.

2. (transitive) To take the color out of, and make white; to bleach

   to blanch linen

   Age has blanched his hair.

3. (transitive, cooking) To cook by dipping briefly into boiling water, then directly into cold water.
4. (transitive) 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
5. (transitive) To bleach by excluding the light, for example the stalks or leaves of plants, by earthing them up or tying them together
6. (transitive) To make white by removing the skin of, for example by scalding

   to blanch almonds

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

   Synonym: palliate

   • 17th century, John Tillotson, The indispensable necessity of the knowledge of the Holy Scripture

     Blanch over the blackest and most absurd things.

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

blanch (third-person singular simple present blanches, present participle blanching, simple past and past participle blanched)

1. To avoid, as from fear; to evade; to leave unnoticed.
   • Francis Bacon

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

   • Reliq. Wot

     I suppose you will not blanch Paris in your way.

2. To cause to turn aside or back.

   to blanch a deer

3. To use evasion.
   • Francis Bacon

     Books will speak plain, when counsellors blanch.

From Late Latin, Vulgar Latin *blancus (compare Friulian blanc, Italian bianco, French blanc, Spanish blanco, Portuguese branco), from Proto-Germanic *blankaz (“bright, shining, blinding, white”), from Proto-Indo-European *bhleg- (“to shine”).

blanch

1. white