blacken
English
Etymology
From Middle English blaknen, blakkenen, equivalent to black + -en (verbal suffix).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈblækən/
Audio (US) (file) - Rhymes: -ækən
Verb
blacken (third-person singular simple present blackens, present participle blackening, simple past and past participle blackened)
- (transitive, causative) To cause to be or become black.
- 1939 September, D. S. Barrie, “The Railways of South Wales”, in Railway Magazine, page 157:
- 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.
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- (intransitive, ergative) To become black.
- The sky blackened as the storm clouds rolled in.
- (transitive, causative) To make dirty.
- To defame or sully.
- (transitive) To cook (meat or fish) by coating with pepper, etc., and quickly searing in a hot pan.
Synonyms
- (make black): black, denigrate
- (make dirty): dirty, soil
- (defame): defame, denigrate, sully, taint, tarnish
Derived terms
- blackened crust
Translations
make black
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make dirty
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defame, sully
|
cook by coating with pepper and quickly searing
become black
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