blacken
verb/ˈblækən/
Etymology From Middle English blaknen, blakkenen, equivalent to black + -en (verbal suffix).
1
Causative To cause to be or become black.
- Iron and coal were the magnets that drew railways to this land of lovely valleys and silent mountains—for such it was a century-and-a-half ago, before man blackened the valleys with the smoke of his forges, scarred the green hills with his shafts and waste-heaps, and drove the salmon from the quiet Rhondda and the murmuring Taff.1939 September, D. S. Barrie, “The Railways of South Wales”, in Railway Magazine, page 157:
2
Ergative To become black.
- The sky blackened as the storm clouds rolled in.
3
Causative To make dirty.
4
To defame or sully.
5
To cook (meat or fish) by coating with pepper, etc., and quickly searing in a hot pan.
- Synonyms
- black, blacken, black up, blackwash, blatch, bletch, denigrate, forswart, infuscate, nigrify, pitch, swart, swarten
- Derived terms
- blackened crust, blackener, blackenization, blackenize, overblacken, reblacken
- Related terms
- black color