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Blank

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blank¹

  • /blænk/ UK
  • /blaŋk/ British, Northern England, Scotland, Southern, Standard, Wales
  • /blæːnk/ Australia
  • [blæːnk] ~ [blɛːnk] ~ [bleːnk] Australia
  • /blɛŋk/ New Zealand
  • /blæŋk/ US
  • /bleɪŋk/ US
  • /blæŋk/
  • [blɹæŋk]
  • /blæŋk/ Southern US
  • [blæŋk] ~ [blæə̯ŋk] ~ [blɛə̯ŋk] Southern US
  • /blæŋk/ Inland Northern American
  • [blɛə̯ŋk] Inland Northern American
  • /bleɪŋk/
  • [bleɪ̯ŋk] ~ [bleːŋk]
  • [bleɪŋk] ~ [blɛːŋk] ~ [blæŋk]

Rhymes with -æŋk

Where it comes from

From Middle English blank, blonc, blaunc, blaunche, from Anglo-Norman blonc, blaunc, blaunche, from Old French blanc, feminine blanche, from Frankish *blank (“gleaming, white, blinding”), from Proto-Germanic *blankaz (“white, bright, blinding”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰleyǵ- (“to shine”). Akin to Old High German blanch (“shining, bright, white”) (German blank), Old English blanc (“white, grey”), blanca (“white steed”), Spanish blanco. More at blink, blind, blanch. Doublet of blanc.

adjective blanker · more blank · blankest · most blank

  1. archaic White or pale; without colour. To the blanc Moone / Her office they preſcrib'd,
  2. Free from writing, printing, or marks; having an empty space to be filled in. blank paper
  3. figuratively Lacking characteristics which give variety; uniform. a blank desert; a blank wall; blank unconsciousness
  4. Abject; absolute; complete; downright; sheer; utter. a blank refusal to cooperate
  5. figuratively Without expression, usually because of incomprehension. a blank glassy look
  6. Utterly confounded or discomfited. Adam […] Aſtonied ſtood and Blank,
  7. Empty; void; without result; fruitless; futile. a blank day
  8. Devoid of thoughts, memory, or inspiration. The shock left his memory blank.
  9. Of ammunition: having propellant but no bullets; unbulleted. The recruits were issued blank rounds for a training exercise.

noun blanks

  1. archaic, historical, obsolete A small French coin, originally of silver, afterwards of copper, worth 5 deniers; also a silver coin of Henry V current in the parts of France then held by the English, worth about 8 pence. Whosoeuer brought a fagot before the kynges tent, he shulde haue a blanke of Fraunce.
  2. obsolete A nonplus.
  3. The white spot in the centre of a target; hence (figuratively) the object to which anything is directed or aimed, the range of such aim. Des. […] And stood within the blank of his displeasure / For my free speech! (Act III, scene 11)
  4. A lot by which nothing is gained; a ticket in a lottery on which no prize is indicated. […] and in Fortune's Lottery lies / A heap of Blanks, like this, for one ſmall Prize.
  5. A space to be filled in on a form or template. Write your answers in the blanks.
  6. Provisional words printed in italics (instead of blank spaces) in a bill before Parliament, being matters of practical detail, of which the final form is to be settled in committee.
  7. US A document, paper, or form with spaces left blank to be filled in at the pleasure of the person to whom it is given (e.g. a blank charter, ballot, form, contract, etc.), or as the event may determine; a blank form. […] and the freemen signified their approbation by an inscribed vote, and their dissent by a blank.
  8. US An empty form without substance; anything insignificant; nothing at all.
  9. US An unprinted leaf of a book.
  10. Blank verse.
  11. Any article of glass on which subsequent processing is required.
  12. The shaved wax ready for placing on a recording machine for making wax records with a stylus.
  13. figuratively A vacant space, place, or period; a void. Du. And what's her hiſtory? Vio. A blanke my Lord:
  14. The ¹ / ₂₃₀₄₀₀ of a grain.
  15. An empty space in one's memory; a forgotten item or memory. My head is so ill that I cannot write a paper full as I used to do; and yet I will not forgive a blank of half an inch from you.
  16. A dash written in place of an omitted letter or word.
  17. The space character; the character resulting from pressing the space bar on a keyboard.
  18. A domino without points on one or both of its divisions. the double blank
  19. A tile that can be played as any letter and having a point value of zero.
  20. abbreviation, ellipsis Ellipsis of blank cartridge.blank cartridge It was an unloaded gun that fired only blanks.
  21. figuratively A sample for a control experiment that does not contain any of the analyte of interest, in order to deliberately produce a non-detection to verify that a detection is distinguishable from it.
  22. figuratively, slang Infertile semen.
  23. Used as a substitute for a profanity. The Beatles have fabulous music, a tough sound! Who gives a blank if they can read music!

verb blanks · blanking · blanked

  1. transitive To make void; to erase. I blanked out my previous entry.
  2. slang, transitive To ignore (a person) deliberately. She blanked me for no reason.
  3. transitive To render ineffective by blanketing with turbulent airflow, such as from aircraft wake or reverse thrust. At high angles of attack, the shuttle’s rudder is blanked by the fuselage and wings, forcing it to use its RCS thrusters for yaw control.
  4. transitive To prevent from scoring; for example, in a sporting event. The team was blanked.
  5. intransitive To become blank. In OPS 6, the 2 EO color field does blank at SSME fine count. Once in fine count in route to an RTLS MECO, the energy state is such that one engine can carry the orbiter though powered pitch-down to a healthy MECO condition with standard RTLS guidance.
  6. informal, intransitive To experience a temporary lapse of memory; to be temporarily unable to remember a particular fact. (Commonly used in the first person, present progressive tense, and commonly followed by on to create a transitive phrasal verb.) I’m blanking on her name right now.

Blank²

Where it comes from

* As a Dutch and German surname, from the adjective blank (“shining, pale, white”).

* As an English and Jewish surname, spelling variant of Blanc, Blanck.

proper noun

  1. A surname. The same preoccupation with developing a conceptual framework is evident in David Blank's Venezuela: Politics in a Petroleum Republic, a modified version of Blank's early theses.
  2. dated Used as an anonymous placeholder for a person's name. Miss Compton, in 'Other People's Worries,' asks rhetorically whether a young rip was not in the Blank divorce case.

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