BLACKEN

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does blacken mean? 

• BLACKEN (verb)
  The verb BLACKEN has 2 senses:

1. make or become black

2. burn slightly and superficially so as to affect color

  Familiarity information: BLACKEN used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BLACKEN (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they blacken    ... he / she / it blackens   
Past simple: blackened   
Past participle: blackened   
-ing form: blackening   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Make or become black

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

black; blacken; melanise; melanize

Context example:

The ceiling blackened

Hypernyms (to "blacken" is one way to...):

color; colour; discolor; discolour (change color, often in an undesired manner)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Antonym:

whiten (turn white)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Burn slightly and superficially so as to affect color

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

blacken; char; scorch; sear

Context example:

the flames scorched the ceiling

Hypernyms (to "blacken" is one way to...):

burn (damage by burning with heat, fire, or radiation)

Domain category:

cookery; cooking; preparation (the act of preparing something (as food) by the application of heat)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "blacken"):

singe; swinge (burn superficially or lightly)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

 Context examples 

On the floor close to his hand there was a little round of paper, blackened on the one side.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

There was no powder-blackening on the clothes.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The planet stands out very clearly in the new observations, visible as a bright point to the right of the blackened centre of the image.

(First Confirmed Image of Newborn Planet, ESO)

“Where are you going?” said the tinker, gripping the bosom of my shirt with his blackened hand.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

All Meryton seemed striving to blacken the man who, but three months before, had been almost an angel of light.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

"You were in trouble last month for the same thing. You've blackened this young man's eye. Do you give him in charge, sir?"

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I looked with timorous joy towards a stately house: I saw a blackened ruin.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The truth was, that she had run into her little cabin, pulled off her dress, blackened her face and hands, put on the fur-skin cloak, and was Cat-skin again.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

He blackened the name of a great, noble man who is dead.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

The low ceiling, smoke-blackened and dingy, was pierced by several square trap-doors with rough-hewn ladders leading up to them.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)