blacken
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blacken
- /ˈblækən/
Rhymes with -ækən
Where it comes from
From Middle English blaknen, blakkenen, equivalent to black + -en (verbal suffix).
verb blackens · blackening · blackened
- To cause to be or become black. 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
- To become black. The sky blackened as the storm clouds rolled in.
- To make dirty.
- To defame or sully.
- To cook (meat or fish) by coating with pepper, etc., and quickly searing in a hot pan.
Similar: black, blacken, black up, blackwash, blatch, bletch, denigrate, forswart, infuscate, nigrify, pitch, swart
