v. Also 5 qwhittyn, 5, 9 dial. whitten, 6 whyten, whyghten. [f. WHITE a. + -EN5. Cf. ON. hvítna to become white.]
1. trans. To make or render white; to impart a white color or appearance to. a. gen.
a. 1300. E. E. Psalter l. 9 [li. 7]. Þou … salt wasche me,… And ouer snawe sal I whitened be.
1552. Huloet, Whyghten, albo,… candefacio.
1814. Scott, Ld. of Isles, III. xv. Whiten’d with foam a thousand streams Leap from the mountain’s crown.
1853. Dickens, Bleak Ho., xxxiv. Take care, while you are young, that you can think in those days, ‘I never whitened a hair of her dear head.’
1873. Black, Pr. Thule, i. The sea whitened by the rushing of the wind.
b. To cover, coat or overspread with something white; spec. to whitewash; to coat (metal) with tin, to tin.
Also said (chiefly poet. or rhet.) of a white substance or a number of white objects covering or spread over a surface.
1435. Misyn, Fire of Love, II. ix. 95. Of qwhome sum þer fowlnes to hyde or þer bewte þa study to increse with payntynge of begillynge avotre þer faces þa color & qwhittyn.
1664. in W. O. Blunt, Ch. Chester-le-Street (1884), 96. For whitning the church four pound ten shillings.
1687. A. Lovell, trans. Thevenot’s Trav., II. 88. In this Countrey of Persia,… they whiten, or if you will, tinn, brass and copper otherwise than with us.
1776. Adam Smith, W. N., I. i. I. 6. To put it [sc. a pin-head] on, is a peculiar business, to whiten the pins is another.
1874. J. Birch, Country Archit., 44. Lath, plaster, float, set and twice whiten all ceilings throughout.
1891. T. Hardy, Tess, li. I shall get the house swept out and whitened to-morrow morning.
1703. Pope, Thebais, 391. Where … human bones yet whiten all the ground.
1719. Young, Busiris, I. i. Sails unnumber’d whiten all the stream.
1823. Scott, Quentin D., xxv. Meadows … whitened with the numerous tents of the Duke of Burgundy’s army.
1854. J. S. C. Abbott, Napoleon (1855), I. xxi. 335. The mountains, whitened with snow, were swept by the bleak winds of winter.
c. To make white by depriving of the natural color; to blanch; to bleach; to make pale.
1693. Evelyn, De la Quint. Compl. Gard., II. 148. To tie up … the tops of the Leaves of Long Lettuce … to make them Cabbage, or at least to whiten them.
1726–31. Waldron, Descr. Isle of Man (1865), 15. A good air to whiten cloth.
1791. Cowper, Iliad, VIII. 90. Fear whiten’d every cheek.
1791. Hamilton, Berthollet’s Dyeing, I. I. I. iii. 51. Oxygen is capable of whitening … the colouring matter.
1839. Ure, Dict. Arts, 767. (Leather) The effects of the paste are to whiten the skins, to soften them, and to protect them from the hardening influence of the atmosphere.
1860. Geo. Eliot, Mill on Fl., VI. xii. I’ve got cloth as has never been whittened.
d. fig. To free or clear from evil, guilt, or the like; also, to cause to seem right, good, pure, etc.; to give a specious appearance to.
c. 1440. Alphabet of Tales, 123. He went & shrafe hym of all his synys…. And onone as he come in, þis man … said; ‘A! welcom, frend! com ner, for þou hase wele whittend þe.’
[1667. Observ. Burning Lond., 10. And which are never true but by a supposition that if they doe not happen in our Countrey, they may happen in another, which is called to Whiten Black.]
1679. Burnet, Hist. Ref., I. Pref. (c) 2 b. Such remarkable blemishes, that … no man … can go about the whitening them.
1687. Dryden, Hind & P., I. 44. The bristl’d Baptist Boar, impure as He, (But whitn’d with the foam of sanctity).
1873. H. Spencer, Study Sociol., ix. (1877), 220. By selecting the evidence any society may be relatively blackened, and any other society relatively whitened.
2. intr. To become or turn white; to assume a white color or aspect; vaguely, to appear white.
a. 1633. G. Herbert, Jacula Prudentum, 943. Thornes whiten yet doe nothing.
1707. Mortimer, Husb., 451. They [sc. Cardons Spanish] whiten in about three Weeks and are fit to eat.
1720. Pope, Iliad, XXI. 382. A Foam whitens on the purple Waves. Ibid. (1725), Odyss., IX. 160. The sea whitens with the rising gale.
1796. Kirwan, Elem. Min. (ed. 2), I. 152. When heated, it hardens and whitens.
1831. G. P. R. James, Phil. Augustus, xvi. Let his corpse remain unburied, and his bones whiten in the wind!
1833. Tennyson, Lady of Shalott, I. ii. Willows whiten, aspens quiver,… By the island in the river.
1853. Longf., trans. Dante, Purgat., XVI. 143. Behold the dawn,… Already whitening.
1914. ‘Ian Hay,’ Knt. on Wheels, xiv. Although his hair was whitening and his figure becoming more spherical, he declined to grow up.
b. To turn pale, esp. from fear or other emotion. (Cf. REDDEN v. 2 b.)
1783. Justamond, trans. Raynal’s Hist. Indies, V. 192. All the human species, in general, whitens in the snow, and is tanned in the sun.
1821. Shelley, Ginevra, 66. The cheek that whitens.
1880. Rhoda Broughton, Second Thoughts, III. iv. ‘I am very glad to hear it,’ he says almost inaudibly, and whitening.
c. fig.: cf. 1 d.
1758. H. Walpole, Catal. Roy. Authors (1759), I. 172. What character that he has censured, has whitened by examination.
1801. S. & Ht. Lee, Cant. T., V. 90. It … bids us whiten by a comparison with the imperfections of others.
Hence Whitened ppl. a.
a. 1711. Ken, Hymns Evang., Poet. Wks. 1721, I. 4. Patin and Chalice were of whiten’d Clay.
1860. Froude, Hist. Eng., xxiv. V. 37. The sunlight stared in white and stainless upon the whitened aisles; the churches were new whitelimed.
1879. Jefferies, Wild Life in S. Co., ii. (1889), 18. That peculiar whitened appearance left when water has passed over vegetation. Ibid. (1881), Wood Magic, II. iv. 99. In his rage and fear, with whitened face.
