Etymology 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”). Cognates Cognate with blench (“to deceive, to trick”) through Proto-Indo-European, whence other etymology of blanch.
Nurse Cramer's face blanched and she turned to Dunbar desperately for aid.1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Soldier in White”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, →OCLC, page 171:
"Where is the target?" "Bearing zero-four-five, Comrade. Bearing is constant," the michman replied, "closing rapidly." Tupolev blanched. "Left full rudder, all ahead flank!"1984, Tom Clancy, “The Seventeenth Day: Sunday, 19 December”, in The Hunt for Red October, Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, →ISBN, page 456:
2
To take the color out of, and make white; to bleach.
to blanch linen
Age has blanched his hair.
3
Cooking, Food, Lifestyle To cook by dipping briefly into boiling water, then directly into cold water.
4
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
To bleach by excluding light, for example the stalks or leaves of plants by earthing them up or tying them together.
6
To make white by removing the skin of, for example by scalding.
to blanch almonds
7
To give a white lustre to (silver, before stamping, in the process of coining)
8
To cover (sheet iron) with a coating of tin.
9
Figuratively To give a favorable appearance to; to whitewash; to whiten;
c. 1680, John Tillotson, The indispensable necessity of the knowledge of the Holy Scripture Blanch over the blackest and most absurd things.
Etymology Variant of blench, of same Proto-Indo-European origin.
1
To avoid, as from fear; to evade; to leave unnoticed.
Ifs and ands to qualify words of treason; whereby every man might express his malice, and blanch his danger.1622, Francis, Lord Verulam, Viscount St. Alban [i.e. Francis Bacon], The Historie of the Raigne of King Henry the Seventh, […], London: […] W[illiam] Stansby for Matthew Lownes, and William Barret, →OCLC:
I suppose you will not blanch Paris in your way.1624-39, Sir Henry Wotton, Reliquiæ Wottonianæ (published 1651), page 343
2
To cause to turn aside or back.
to blanch a deer
3
To use evasion.
Books will speak plain, when counsellors blanch.1625, Francis [Bacon], “Of Counsel”, in The Essayes […], 3rd edition, London: […] Iohn Haviland for Hanna Barret, →OCLC: