Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Blanch

Blanch (blȧnch), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Blanched; p. pr. & vb. n. Blanching.] [OE. blanchen, blaunchen, F. blanchir, fr. blanc white. See Blank, a.]

1. To take the color out of, and make white; to bleach; as, to blanch linen; age has blanched his hair.

2. (Gardening) To bleach by excluding the light, as the stalks or leaves of plants, by earthing them up or tying them together.

3. (Confectionery & Cookery) (a) To make white by removing the skin of, as by scalding; as, to blanch almonds. (b) To whiten, as the surface of meat, by plunging into boiling water and afterwards into cold, so as to harden the surface and retain the juices.

4. To give a white luster to (silver, before stamping, in the process of coining.).

5. To cover (sheet iron) with a coating of tin.

6. Fig.: To whiten; to give a favorable appearance to; to whitewash; to palliate.

Blanch over the blackest and most absurd things. Tillotson.

Syn. — To Blanch, Whiten. To whiten is the generic term, denoting, to render white; as, to whiten the walls of a room. Usually (though not of necessity) this is supposed to be done by placing some white coloring matter in or upon the surface of the object in question. To blanch is to whiten by the removal of coloring matter; as, to blanch linen. So the cheek is blanched by fear, i. e., by the withdrawal of the blood, which leaves it white.

Blanch (blȧnch), v. i. To grow or become white; as, his cheek blanched with fear; the rose blanches in the sun.

[Bones] blanching on the grass. Tennyson.

Blanch, v. t. [See Blench.] 1. To avoid, as from fear; to evade; to leave unnoticed. [Obs.]

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

I suppose you will not blanch Paris in your way. Reliq. Wot.

2. To cause to turn aside or back; as, to blanch a deer.

Blanch, v. i. To use evasion. [Obs.]

Books will speak plain, when counselors blanch. Bacon.

Blanch, n. (Mining) Ore, not in masses, but mixed with other minerals.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.