blench

Definitions

  • WordNet 3.6
    • v blench turn pale, as if in fear
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Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
    • n Blench A looking aside or askance. "These blenches gave my heart another youth."
    • Blench To baffle; to disconcert; to turn away; -- also, to obstruct; to hinder. "Ye should have somewhat blenched him therewith, yet he might and would of likelihood have gone further."
    • Blench To draw back from; to deny from fear. "He now blenched what before he affirmed."
    • Blench To fly off; to turn aside. "Though sometimes you do blench from this to that."
    • v. i. & t Blench To grow or make pale.
    • Blench To shrink; to start back; to draw back, from lack of courage or resolution; to flinch; to quail. "Blench not at thy chosen lot.""This painful, heroic task he undertook, and never blenched from its fulfillment."
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Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
    • blench To shrink; start back; give way; flinch; turn aside or fly off.
    • blench To quail: said of the eye.
    • blench To deceive; cheat.
    • blench To draw back from; shirk; avoid; elude; deny from fear.
    • blench To hinder or obstruct; disconcert; foil.
    • n blench A deceit; a trick.
    • n blench A sidelong glance.
    • blench 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.
    • blench To become pale; blanch.
    • blench To make white; blanch.
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Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary
    • v.i Blench blensh to shrink or start back: to flinch.
    • adj., adv Blench blensh based on the payment of a nominal yearly duty
    • Blench Also Blanch
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Etymology

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
OE. blenchen, to blench, elude, deceive, AS. blencan, to deceive; akin to Icel. blekkja, to impose upon. Prop. a causative of blink, to make to wink, to deceive. See Blink, and cf. 3d Blanch

Usage

In literature:

The brave girl never blenched.
"Much Darker Days" by Andrew Lang (AKA A. Huge Longway)
Three years back you would have blenched at the name of murder.
"The Short-story" by William Patterson Atkinson
His discipline was of the sternest, his censure a thing to make the boldest officer blench.
"The Long Roll" by Mary Johnston
Or," she added, as if she could not bear to see him blench, "he could think so.
"The Coast of Bohemia" by William Dean Howells
She bore it without blenching.
"Melomaniacs" by James Huneker
But there is one great pledge, a solemn warrant of her resolve to swerve not, to blench not, which England has already offered.
"The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain" by J. A. Cramb
She beheld with a distinct blenching of the spirit Sir Isaac advancing towards her.
"The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman" by H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
At the boy's cry, they shuddered, and more than one man blenched.
"The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers" by Francis Rolt-Wheeler
If that ye stammer or blench, or anyways boggle at the swearing, he will not believe you; and, by the mass, he shall die.
"The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25)" by Robert Louis Stevenson
She received my communication without blenching.
"Francezka" by Molly Elliot Seawell
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In poetry:

The girl that weds a soldier
Must never blench for fear;
I kissed my last and looked my last
Upon my lovely dear.
"The Lowlands Of Flanders" by Katharine Tynan
I admit the briar
Entangled in my hair
Did not injure me;
My blenching and trembling,
Nothing but dissembling,
Nothing but coquetry.
"A First Confession" by William Butler Yeats
Yet nerve thy spirit to the proof,
And blench not at thy chosen lot.
The timid good may stand aloof,
The sage may frown--yet faint thou not.
"The Battle-Field" by William Cullen Bryant
Her face was as the face of mid—June when
Blossoms the meadowsweet, the bindweed blows:
Pale as a lily first She blenched, and then
Blushed like a rose.
"Victoria" by Alfred Austin
Tho' cruel hands with mighty flail
Have threshed us, yet we have not blenched:
The sea of blood could naught prevail,
That fire is burning, still unquenched.
"Chanukah Thoughts" by Morris Rosenfeld
Yet by the dour deep trench
Their mettle did not blench,
When mist and midnight closed o'er sad Sedgemoor;
Though on those hearts of oak
The tall cuirassiers broke,
And Afric's tiger-bands sprang forth with sullen roar:
"The Ballad Of King Monmouth" by Francis Turner Palgrave

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