Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To draw back or shy away, as from fear; flinch.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To shrink; start back; give way; flinch; turn aside or fly off.
  • To quail: said of the eye.
  • To deceive; cheat.
  • To draw back from; shirk; avoid; elude; deny from fear.
  • To hinder or obstruct; disconcert; foil.
  • noun A deceit; a trick.
  • noun A sidelong glance.
  • To become pale; blanch.
  • To make white; blanch.
  • Upon or based upon the payment of a nominal or trifling yearly duty: applied to a sort of tenure of land: as, the estate is held blench of the crown. See blanch-holding.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb To shrink; to start back; to draw back, from lack of courage or resolution; to flinch; to quail.
  • intransitive verb obsolete To fly off; to turn aside.
  • verb To grow or make pale.
  • noun obsolete A looking aside or askance.
  • transitive verb obsolete To baffle; to disconcert; to turn away; -- also, to obstruct; to hinder.
  • transitive verb obsolete To draw back from; to deny from fear.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb intransitive To shrink; start back; give way; flinch; turn aside or fly off.
  • verb intransitive (of the eye) To quail.
  • verb transitive To deceive; cheat.
  • verb transitive To draw back from; shrink; avoid; elude; deny, as from fear.
  • verb transitive To hinder; obstruct; disconcert; foil.
  • noun A deceit; a trick.
  • noun A sideling glance.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb turn pale, as if in fear

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English blenchen, from Old English blencan, to deceive; see bhel- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English blenchen, from Old English blencan ("to deceive, cheat"), from Proto-Germanic *blankijanan (“to deceive”), from Proto-Indo-European *bhleg- (“to burn, shine, scorch”). Cognate with Icelandic blekkja ("to deceive, cheat, impose upon").

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Examples

  • ( "The word 'blench' came from Rehnquist," Bradley says.

    Rehnquist the Great? 2005

  • ( "The word 'blench' came from Rehnquist," Bradley says.

    Rehnquist the Great? 2005

  • ( "The word 'blench' came from Rehnquist," Bradley says.

    Rehnquist the Great? 2005

  • For the true face of catwalk evil, look instead to the girl models, some so emaciated they made Samantha Cameron blench in shock.

    If tokenism is what it takes to get on, so be it | Barbara Ellen 2011

  • Mandelson: though twice disgraced, we should not blench at using him as a weapon with which to help the EU's demise

    Bantamweight Fight Fest 2008

  • I blench to say this of a fellow Burger but NWB is . . . no . . . gentleman.

    Cheeseburger Gothic » Casualties. 2010

  • How my words, my very presence and smell of me, of my words, must make you furiously blench!

    Excerpt from Urdoxa 2.0 2010

  • She heard Colum and Dougal talking about me; that's what made her blench-she'd think Colum had heard she'd been to me for the ill-wish.

    Sick Cycle Carousel 2010

  • The movie is even more violent than its predecessors, the language reaches levels of obscenity that would make David Mamet blench and uses the real names of everyone concerned.

    Bonded by Blood 2010

  • Mandelson: though twice disgraced, we should not blench at using him as a weapon with which to help the EU's demise

    Archive 2008-06-29 2008

Comments

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  • The mouth of the river was barred by a rosy, drowsy sunrise; the sky had lost its stars, and had blenched, and was being flooded by a brave daylight blue...

    - Rebecca West, The Judge

    July 17, 2009