blench

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“
He blenched at the idea--I don't mean that you could see him blench, for of course you couldn't see it without you scraped him, and I didn't care enough about it to scrape him, but I knew the blench was there, just the same, and within a book-cover's thickness of the surface, too--blenched, and trembled.

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Definitions (17)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. intransitive verb To draw back or shy away, as from fear; flinch.
  2. verb Variant of blanch.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (10)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (4)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (1)

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Examples (50)

  • Still she did not blench: maiden of the Rohirrim, child of kings, slender but as a steel-blade, fair but terrible. —  The Lord of the Rings
  • That merciless retort made her blench, and she semi- turned away, presenting him with a view of her delicate profile. —  CRISTIANO ANDREOTTI, the software billionaire, stood on the topmost deck of the megayacht Lestara
  • And when she did not blench, he began to accuse her as men were used to accuse their daughters in the bright days of the Sailor King. —  Clayhanger
  • Nothing And yet he did not blench, nor would he; being half French and of good blood, at a time when good French blood ran the more generously for a half century of war. —  The Long Night
  • I did not blench, and she said Vary good. —  Uncle Silas A Tale of Bartram-Haugh
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

counterrecoil ·  rob ·  dis-ease ·  obed ·  baldy ·  ricochet ·  oath-friend ·  help-meet ·  embalmment ·  affiance ·  dove-eyed ·  glass-maker
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (5)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English blenchen, from Old English blencan, to deceive; see bhel-1 in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (4)

  1. In early modern English sometimes spelled blanch by confusion with blanch, make white (see blanch and blanch); from Middle English blenchen, also blenken, occasionally blinchen, turn aside, evade, disconcert, usually intransitive, shrink back, give way, from Anglo-Saxon blencan (= Icelandic blekkja), deceive, supposed to be a causal form of blincan, blink (cf. drench, causal of drink), but the latter verb does not occur in the older language: see blink. For the sense ‘deceive,’ cf. blear one's eyes, deceive, under blear.
  2. from blench, v.
  3. A variant form of blanch, adjective: see blanch and blank.
  4. Var. of blanch, partly phonetic and partly by notional confusion with blench.
 

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/blɛntʃ/
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