bleach

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• Rhymes: -iːtʃ

From Middle English bleche (also bleke), from Old English blǣċ, blǣc, variants of blāc (“bright, shining, glittering, flashing; bleak, pale, pallid, wan, livid”), from Proto-Germanic *blaikaz (“pale, shining”). More at bleak.

bleach (comparative bleacher or more bleach, superlative bleachest or most bleach)

1. (archaic) Pale; bleak.

From Middle English blechen, from Old English blǣċan (“to bleach, whiten”), from Proto-Germanic *blaikijaną, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰel- (“to shine”). Cognate with Dutch bleken (“to bleach”), German bleichen (“to bleach”), Danish blege, Swedish bleka (“to bleach”). Related to Old English blāc (“pale”) (English blake; compare also bleak).

bleach (third-person singular simple present bleaches, present participle bleaching, simple past and past participle bleached)

1. (transitive) To treat with bleach, especially so as to whiten (fabric, paper, etc.) or lighten (hair).
   • 1538, Thomas Elyot, The Dictionary of Syr Thomas Eliot Knyght, London: Thomas Berthelet,

     Candifacio, to make whyte, to bleache, to make to glowe lyke a burnyng cole.

   • 1774, Tobias Smollett, Independence: An Ode, London: J. Murray, p. 8,

     Immortal liberty, whose look sublime

     Hath bleach’d the Tyrant’s Cheek in every varying Clime.

   • 1830, Andrew Ure, A Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, and Mines, London: Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longmans, “BLEACHING,” p. 128,

     The destruction of the colouring matters attached to the bodies to be bleached is effected either by the action of the air and light, of chlorine, or of sulphurous acid.

2. (intransitive) To be whitened or lightened (by the sun, for example).
   • c. 1610, William Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale, Act IV, Scene 3,

     The white sheet bleaching on the hedge,

     With heigh! the sweet birds, O, how they sing!

   • 1871, Louisa May Alcott, Little Men, Chapter 15,

     […] when Mrs. Giddy-gaddy came to take out her clothes, deep green stains appeared on every thing, for she had forgotten the green silk lining of a certain cape, and its color had soaked nicely into the pink and blue gowns, the little chemises, and even the best ruffled petticoat. […] “Lay them on the grass to bleach,” said Daisy, with an air of experience.

   • 1927, Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse, London: The Hogarth Press, 1920, Part 2, p. 198,

     The autumn trees, ravaged as they are, take on the flash of tattered flags kindling in the gloom of cool cathedral caves where gold letters on marble pages describe death in battle and how bones bleach and burn far away in Indian sands.

3. (intransitive, biology, of corals) to lose color due to stress-induced expulsion of symbiotic unicellular algae.

   Once coral bleaching begins, corals tend to continue to bleach even if the stressor is removed.

4. (transitive, figuratively) To make meaningless; to divest of meaning; to make empty.

   semantically bleached words that have become illocutionary particles

• blanch

bleach (countable and uncountable, plural bleaches)

1. (uncountable) A chemical, such as sodium hypochlorite or hydrogen peroxide, or a preparation of such a chemical, used for disinfecting or whitening.
2. (countable) A variety of bleach.

• bleachfield

From Middle English bleche, from Old English blǣċu, blǣċo (“paleness, pallor”), from Proto-Germanic *blaikį̄ (“paleness”).

bleach (plural bleaches)

1. An act of bleaching; exposure to the sun.

From Middle English bleche, from Old English blǣċe (“irritation of the skin, leprosy; psoriasis”).

bleach (plural bleaches)

1. A disease of the skin.

• Blecha, balche, balché