blench

== English == === Pronunciation === IPA(key): /blɛnt͡ʃ/ Rhymes: -ɛntʃ === Etymology 1 === From Middle English blench and blenchen, from Old English blenċan (“to deceive, cheat”), from Proto-Germanic *blankijaną (“to deceive”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰleyǵ-. Cognate with Icelandic blekkja (“to deceive, cheat, impose upon”). ==== Verb ==== blench (third-person singular simple present blenches, present participle blenching, simple past and past participle blenched) (intransitive) To shrink; start back; give way; flinch; turn aside or fly off. 1998, Andrew Hurley (translator), Jorge Louis Borges, "Ibn-Hakam al-Bokhari, Murdered in His Labyrnth", Collected Fictions, Penguin Putnam, p.255 "This," said Dunraven with a vast gesture that did not blench at the cloudy stars, and that took in the black moors, the sea, and a majestic, tumbledown edifice that looked like a stable fallen upon hard times, "is my ancestral land." (intransitive, of the eye) To quail. (transitive) To deceive; cheat. (transitive) To draw back from; shrink; avoid; elude; deny, as from fear. (transitive) To hinder; obstruct; disconcert; foil. (intransitive) To fly off; to turn aside. ===== Derived terms ===== ==== Noun ==== blench (plural blenches) A deceit; a trick. A sidelong glance. ==== Descendants ==== blanch (avoid) === Etymology 2 === From Old French blanchir (“to bleach”). ==== Verb ==== blench (third-person singular simple present blenches, present participle blenching, simple past and past participle blenched) (obsolete) To blanch. ===== Related terms ===== blench holding unblenching === References === == Middle English == === Noun === blench A deceit; a trick. c. 1210, MS. Cotton Caligula A IX f.246.