blanch

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /blɑːnt͡ʃ/, /blænt͡ʃ/

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  • Audio (Southern England)

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  Rhymes: -ɑːntʃ, -æntʃ

Etymology 1

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”).

Verb

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.

   • 1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Soldier in White”, in Catch-22 , New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 171:

     Nurse Cramer's face blanched and she turned to Dunbar desperately for aid.

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. (intransitive) To cover (sheet iron) with a coating of tin.
9. (transitive, figuratively) To give a favorable appearance to; to whitewash; to whiten;

   Synonym: palliate

   • c. 1680, John Tillotson, The indispensable necessity of the knowledge of the Holy Scripture

     Blanch over the blackest and most absurd things.

Derived terms

• blanched almond

Related terms

• blanch holding
• parboil

Translations

Etymology 2

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

Verb

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.
   • 1622, Francis, Lord Verulam, Viscount St. Alban [i.e. Francis Bacon], The Historie of the Raigne of King Henry the Seventh, , London: W Stansby for Matthew Lownes, and William Barret, →OCLC:

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

   • 1624-39, Sir Henry Wotton, Reliquiæ Wottonianæ (published 1651), page 343

     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.
   • 1625, Francis [Bacon], “Of Counsel”, in The Essayes , 3rd edition, London: Iohn Haviland for Hanna Barret, →OCLC:

     Books will speak plain, when counsellors blanch.

Haitian Creole

Etymology

From French blanche (“white”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /blãʃ/

Adjective

blanch

1. white

   Synonym: blan

Ladin

Etymology

From Early Medieval Latin blancus, from Frankish. Compare Italian bianco.

Adjective

blanch

1. white