whiten
/ˈ(h)waɪ̯.tən/
whiten verb: (To cause) to become white or whiter; to bleach or blanch.
Verb
whiten (third-person singular simple present whitens, present participle whitening, simple past and past participle whitened)
- (To cause) to become white or whiter; to bleach or blanch.
- Age had whitened his hair.
- The trees in spring whiten with blossoms.
- To increase the security of an iterated block cipher by steps that combine the data with portions of the key.
- To normalize data so that the covariance matrix becomes the identity matrix; i.e., to remove correlations so each variable has unit variance.
Proper noun capitalized: Whiten
Whiten (plural Whitens)
- A surname.
whiten meaning in Urdu, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada
whiten in Urdu
- پھیکا پڑنا, رنگ اڑ جانا, اجلانا
whiten in Telugu
- to become white or whiter; to bleach or blanch
- తెల్లబడు tellabaḍu
whiten in Malayalam
- to whiten, brighten
- വെളുക്കുക veḷukkuka
- to whiten, brighten something
- വെളുപ്പിക്കുക veḷuppikkuka
whiten in Kannada
- ಬೆಳರು, ಬೆಳರಿಸು, ಬೆಳ್ಕರಿಸು, ಬೆಳುಕರಿಸು
More languagesFewer languages
- whiten in Odia
- ଧଉଳାଇବା dhauḷāibā
- whiten in Arabic
- بَيَّضَ bayyaḍa, اِبْيَضَّ ibyaḍḍa
- whiten in Malay
- putihkan, memutih
- whiten in Indonesian
- putihkan, memutih
- Kashmiri
- پرَٛنُن pranun
Forms of whiten
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | whitens |
| present participle | whitening |
| past participle | whitened |
| past | whitened |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Whitens |
Origin of whiten
From Middle English whitenen, whitnen, from Old Norse hvítna (“to whiten”), from Proto-Germanic *hwītnōną (“to whiten, become white”), from Proto-Indo-European *kwind-, *kwint- (“bright”), equivalent to white + -en. Cognate with Icelandic hvítna (“to whiten”), Swedish vitna, hvitna (“to whiten”), Danish hvidne (“to whiten”). Compare Old English hwītian (“to whiten, become white, be white, make white”).
Words formed from whiten
Words that rhyme with whiten
Questions about whiten
- What does whiten mean?
- Whiten means (To cause) to become white or whiter; to bleach or blanch.
- What is whiten in Urdu?
- Whiten in Urdu is پھیکا پڑنا, رنگ اڑ جانا, اجلانا. See Whiten meaning in Urdu.
- What part of speech is whiten?
- Whiten can be a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce whiten?
- Whiten is pronounced /ˈ(h)waɪ̯.tən/.
- What is the past tense of whiten?
- The past tense of whiten is whitened.
Words near whiten in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: whiten (page history and authors); Whiten (page history and authors); whiten (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); വെളുക്കുക (Malayalam) (page history and authors); whiten (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ଧଉଳାଇବା (Odia) (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.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-whiten.wav.
Cite this entry: “whiten.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/whiten. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.