blend
English
Etymology
From Middle English blenden, either from Old English blandan, blondan, ġeblandan, ġeblendan[1] or from Old Norse blanda (“to blend, mix”)[2] (which was originally a strong verb with the present-tense stem blend[3]; compare blendingr (“a blending, a mixture; a half-breed”)[4]), whence also Danish blande, or from a blend of the Old English and Old Norse terms; both ultimately from Proto-Germanic *blandaną (“to blend; mix; combine”).[5] Compare Middle Dutch blanden (“to mix”), Gothic 𐌱𐌻𐌰𐌽𐌳𐌰𐌽 (blandan), Old Church Slavonic блєсти (blesti, “to go astray”).
Pronunciation
- enPR: blĕnd, IPA(key): /blɛnd/
Audio (US) (file) - Rhymes: -ɛnd
- Homophone: blende
Noun
blend (plural blends)
- A mixture of two or more things.
- Their music has been described as a blend of jazz and heavy metal.
- Our department has a good blend of experienced workers and young promise.
- (linguistics) A word formed by combining two other words; a grammatical contamination, portmanteau word.
Synonyms
- (mixture): combination, mix, mixture
- (in linguistics): frankenword, portmanteau, portmanteau word
Translations
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Verb
blend (third-person singular simple present blends, present participle blending, simple past and past participle blended or (poetic) blent)
- (transitive) To mingle; to mix; to unite intimately; to pass or shade insensibly into each other.
- To make hummus you need to blend chickpeas, olive oil, lemon juice and garlic.
- (intransitive) To be mingled or mixed.
- (Can we date this quote?) Irving
- There is a tone of solemn and sacred feeling that blends with our conviviality.
- (Can we date this quote?) {{w:John Keats|Keats}}
- To feel no other breezes than are blown / Through its tall woods with high romances blent
- 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 3, in The China Governess:
- Sepia Delft tiles surrounded the fireplace, their crudely drawn Biblical scenes in faded cyclamen blending with the pinkish pine, while above them, instead of a mantelshelf, there was an archway high enough to form a balcony with slender balusters and a tapestry-hung wall behind.
- 2013 May-June, William E. Conner, “An Acoustic Arms Race”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3, page 206-7:
- Earless ghost swift moths become “invisible” to echolocating bats by forming mating clusters close […] above vegetation and effectively blending into the clutter of echoes that the bat receives from the leaves and stems around them. Many insects probably use this strategy, which is a close analogy to crypsis in the visible world—camouflage and other methods for blending into one’s visual background.
- (Can we date this quote?) Irving
- (obsolete) To pollute by mixture or association; to spoil or corrupt; to blot; to stain.
- (Can we find and add a quotation of Spenser to this entry?)
Quotations
- For quotations of use of this term, see Citations:blend.
Synonyms
- (to mix; to unite intimately): See also Thesaurus:homogenize and Thesaurus:mix
Derived terms
Translations
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References
- “blend” in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
- “blend” in Merriam–Webster Online Dictionary.
- “blanda” in: Richard Cleasby, Guðbrandur Vigfússon — An Icelandic-English Dictionary (1874)
- “blendingr” in: Richard Cleasby, Guðbrandur Vigfússon — An Icelandic-English Dictionary (1874)
- “blend” in Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary, 2001–2019.
Central Franconian
Etymology
From Old High German blind, northern variant of blint.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /blent/
Adjective
blend (masculine blenne or blende, feminine blenn or blend, comparative blenner or blender, superlative et' blendste)
- (Moselle Franconian, some dialects of Ripuarian) blind; unable to see
Usage notes
- The inflected forms with -nn- are used in those dialects in which blend is the inherited form (Moselle Franconian, southern Ripuarian). The forms with -nd- are used in Ripuarian to the extent to which inherited blenk has been replaced with blend.