Forms: 4–6 blaunche, 5 blawnche, blanch-yn, 6 blanche, 7 blaunch, 6– blanch. [a. F. blanch-ir to whiten, f. blanc white. Cf. also BLANK v.]
1. trans. To make white, whiten: chiefly, in mod. use, by depriving of color; to bleach. Also fig.
a. 1400[?]. Morte Arth., 3040. Chirches and chapelles chalke whitte blawnchede.
1607. Dekker, Sir T. Wyatt, 126. Patience has blancht thy soule as white as snow.
1727. Bradley, Fam. Dict., s.v. Guiacum, The Salt of Guaiacum, which you may blanch by calcining it with a great Fire in a Crucible.
1805. Southey, Madoc in W., viii. His bones had now been blanch’d.
1859. Merivale, Rom. Emp. (1865), VII. lv. 15. Age had blanched his hair.
1875. Browning, Aristoph. Apol., 120. All at once, a cloud has blanched the blue.
b. To make (metals) white: in Alchemy by ‘albation,’ or ‘albification’; in techn. use, to tin.
1582. Hester, Secr. Phiorav., III. civ. 130. Orpiment … doeth blanche all mettals.
1710. Palmer, Proverbs, 102. Like them that pass base money, blanch it to cover the brass.
1728. Rutty, Tin-Plates, in Phil. Trans., XXXV. 635. Till … you would tin them, or in the Term of Art, blanch them.
c. To remove the dark crust from an alloy after annealing.
1803. Phil. Trans., XCIII. 187. Gold alloyed with one-twelfth of silver … may be stamped without being annealed; it consequently does not require to be blanched.
2. Cookery. To whiten almonds, or the like, by taking off the skin; hence (as this is done by throwing them into boiling water), to scald by a short rapid boil in order to remove the skin, or for any other purpose.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XVII. cix. They [Hazel-nuts] engender moche ventosite, yf þey ben ete with þe small skynnes; þerfore … it is good to blaunche hem in hoot water.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 38. Blanchyn almandys, or oþer lyke. dealbo, decortico.
1530. Palsgr., 456/2. He can blandysshe better … than blanche almondes.
1681. Chetham, Angler’s Vade-m., xxxix. § 5 (1689), 257. Before you put on the Sawce, blanch off very neatly the skins of the Pearch and Tench.
1769. Mrs. Raffald, Eng. Housekpr. (1778), 88. Blanch your tongue, slit it down the middle, and lay it on a soup plate.
1796. Mrs. Glasse, Cookery, v. 41. After boiling your palates very tender … blanch and scrape them clean.
b. humorously. To strip.
1675. Cotton, Poet. Wks. (1765), 261. Come, Ladies, blanch you to your Skins.
3. To whiten plants by depriving them of light, so as to prevent the development of chlorophyll.
1669. Worlidge, Syst. Agric. (1681), 169. If you have a desire to have them white, or blanch them, (as the French term it) … you may cover every Plant with a small Earthen-pot, and lay some hot Soyl upon them.
1807. J. E. Smith, Phys. Bot., 206. The common practice of blanching Celery.
1861. Delamer, Kitch. Gard., 73. Blanching the shoots by a covering of sweet earth.
4. To make pale with fear, cold, hunger, etc.
1605. Shaks., Macb., III. iv. 116. And keepe the naturall Rubie of your Cheekes When mine is blanch’d with feare.
1791. Cowper, Iliad, III. 41. Fear blanches cold his cheeks.
1857. Ruskin, Pol. Econ. Art, 17. The famine blanches your lips.
5. To give a fair appearance to by artifice or suppression of the truth; to palliate, to ‘whitewash.’ Now only with over (with reference to 1 b.).
1549. Latimer, Ploughers (Arb.), 37. Blanchers … that can blanche the abuse of Images.
1601. Dent, Pathw. Heaven, 165. Howsoeuer you mince it and blanch it ouer.
1611. Speed, Hist. Gt. Brit., III. xlv. 373. The Author … blancheth the matter, saying, that he died a naturall death.
1641. Milton, Ch. Discip., I. (1851), 11. To blanch and varnish her deformities.
1709. Sacheverell, Serm., 15 Aug., 10. Men … that … can Hypocritically Blanch and Palliate … Iniquities.
1880. Ruskin, Lett. Clergy, 367. To take the punishment of it [wrong], not to get it blanched over by any means.
6. intr. To turn or become white (chiefly by loss of color); to bleach; to pale.
1768. Tucker, Lt. Nat., I. 12. If wax blanches in the sun.
1839. Marryat, Phant. Ship, xxix. Their cheeks blanched.
1862. Bright, Amer. Sp. (1876), 111. Left the bones of her citizens to blanch on a hundred European battlefields.
1863. Tennyson, Boädicea, 76. As when the rolling breakers boom and blanch on the precipices.
