blanch
/blɑːnt͡ʃ/
blanch verb: to grow or become white.
Verb (1)
blanch (third-person singular simple present blanches, present participle blanching, simple past and past participle blanched)
- To grow or become white.
- His cheek blanched with fear.
- The rose blanches in the sun.
- To take the color out of, and make white; to bleach.
- to blanch linen
- Age has blanched his hair.
- To cook by dipping briefly into boiling water, then directly into cold water.
- 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.
- To bleach by excluding light, for example the stalks or leaves of plants by earthing them up or tying them together.
- To make white by removing the skin of, for example by scalding.
- to blanch almonds
- To give a white lustre to (silver, before stamping, in the process of coining)
- To cover (sheet iron) with a coating of tin.
- To give a favorable appearance to; to whitewash; to whiten;
- Blanch over the blackest and most absurd things.c. 1680, John Tillotson, The indispensable necessity of the knowledge of the Holy Scripture
- Synonyms:
- palliate
Verb (2)
blanch (third-person singular simple present blanches, present participle blanching, simple past and past participle blanched)
- 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.1622, Francis, Lord Verulam, Viscount St. Alban [i.e. Francis Bacon], The Historie of the Raigne of King Henry the Seventh, […], London: […] W[illiam] Stansby for Matthew Lownes, and William Barret...
- I suppose you will not blanch Paris in your way.1624-39, Sir Henry Wotton, Reliquiæ Wottonianæ (published 1651), page 343
- To cause to turn aside or back.
- to blanch a deer
- To use evasion.
- Books will speak plain, when counsellors blanch.1625, Francis [Bacon], “Of Counsel”, in The Essayes […], 3rd edition, London: […] Iohn Haviland for Hanna Barret, →OCLC
Proper noun capitalized: Blanch
Blanch
- 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?, Scene 1
blanch meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam
blanch in Tamil
- நிறம் நீக்கி வெளுப்பாக்கு, வெளிறு, துடைத்து பளிச்சிட வை, ஈயம் பூசு, தவிர், தப்பி
blanch in Urdu
- blanch, bleach, whiten
- اجلانا ujlānā
- to blanch
- اجلنا ujalnā
blanch in Bengali
- বিবর্ণ করা
blanch in Malayalam
- വെളുപ്പിക്കുക
Examples of blanch in a sentence
- When he saw the ghost, he blanched up.
- If so yes, it's better to give a blanching to the asparagi.
- If pressure continues, the area remains erythemic and will not blanch.
Synonyms of blanch
Forms of blanch
| third-person singular present | blanches |
|---|---|
| present participle | blanching |
| past participle | blanched |
| past | blanched |
Origin of blanch
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.
Variant of blench, of same Proto-Indo-European origin.
Words formed from blanch
Phrases with blanch
Words that rhyme with blanch
Questions about blanch
- What does blanch mean?
- Blanch means to grow or become white.
- What is blanch in Tamil?
- Blanch in Tamil is நிறம் நீக்கி வெளுப்பாக்கு, வெளிறு, துடைத்து பளிச்சிட வை. See Blanch meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is blanch?
- Blanch can be a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce blanch?
- Blanch is pronounced /blɑːnt͡ʃ/.
- What is the past tense of blanch?
- The past tense of blanch is blanched.
Words near blanch in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: blanch (page history and authors); Blanch (page history and authors); blanch (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); اجلانا (Urdu) (page history and authors); Blanch (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); blanch (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-blanch1.wav, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vininn126-blanch.wav.
Cite this entry: “blanch.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/blanch. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.