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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Blench

Blench \Blench\, n. A looking aside or askance. [Obs.]

These blenches gave my heart another youth.
--Shak.

Blench

Blench \Blench\, v. i. & t. [See 1st Blanch.] To grow or make pale.
--Barbour.

Blench

Blench \Blench\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Blenched; p. pr. & vb. n. Blenching.] [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.]

  1. To shrink; to start back; to draw back, from lack of courage or resolution; to flinch; to quail.

    Blench not at thy chosen lot.
    --Bryant.

    This painful, heroic task he undertook, and never blenched from its fulfillment.
    --Jeffrey.

  2. To fly off; to turn aside. [Obs.]

    Though sometimes you do blench from this to that.
    --Shak.

Blench

Blench \Blench\, v. t.

  1. To baffle; to disconcert; to turn away; -- also, to obstruct; to hinder. [Obs.]

    Ye should have somewhat blenched him therewith, yet he might and would of likelihood have gone further.
    --Sir T. More.

  2. To draw back from; to deny from fear. [Obs.]

    He now blenched what before he affirmed.
    --Evelyn.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
blench

Old English blencan "deceive, cheat," from Proto-Germanic *blenk- "to shine, dazzle, blind," from PIE root *bhel- (1) "to shine, flash, burn" (see bleach (v.)). Sense of "move suddenly, wince, dodge" is from c.1300. Related: Blenched; blenching.

Wiktionary
blench

Etymology 1 n. 1 A deceit; a trick. 2 A sidelong glance. vb. 1 (context intransitive English) To shrink; start back; give way; flinch; turn aside or fly off. 2 (context intransitive English) (context of the eye English) To quail. 3 (context transitive English) To deceive; cheat. 4 (context transitive English) To draw back from; shrink; avoid; elude; deny, as from fear. 5 (context transitive English) To hinder; obstruct; disconcert; foil. 6 (context intransitive English) To fly off; to turn aside. Etymology 2

vb. (context obsolete English) To blanch.

WordNet
blench

v. turn pale, as if in fear [syn: pale, blanch]

Usage examples of "blench".

Bellis blenched when that began, remembering the misery of the nightmares that had racked New Crobuzon and that ultimately had led her here.

In that case she who had showed a brave front to Basterga all these months, who had not blenched before the daily and hourly persecution to which she had been exposed in her home, was not likely to succumb to the senile advances of a man who might be her grandfather!

If the eye that adventures the vision be dimmed by vice, impure, or weak, and unable in its cowardly blenching to see the uttermost brightness, then it sees nothing even though another point to what lies plain to sight before it.

Of the others, some were but lads, and of the Chapmen were three old men, and more than one blencher besides.

Burgers were fierce without head-strong folly, and the Wheat-wearers deemed that if they blenched now, they had something worse than death to look to.

I said threateningly to the idiot, and at the sound of my voice and the gesture of my hand, he blenched, yelped, rolled over away from me, and then got to his feet and shambled off for several yards before stopping to regard us once more with his pacificatory, disgusting ogle.

Cashmore no more blenched now than he had blenched at the puce garment.

Still the strong face did not blench, and still the scornful smile played about the thin lips.

Was he to blench and tremble at the mention of the name of a Court lackey out of Paris, who brought him a message from the Queen-Regent?

And between them was a shape that made the bravest blench with horror - a lean vulture figure in a filmy robe.

Corey, however she viewed it, could not allow herself to blench before the son whom she had taught that to want magnanimity was to be less than gentlemanly.

Terrified by that threat, Valerie had blenched, and had felt her spirit deserting her.

Then, of course, there was his reputation as a rake, which made every chaperon blench.

He blenched at the idea—I don’t mean that you could see him blench, for of course you couldn’t see it without you scraped him, and I didn’t care enough about it to scrape him, but I knew the blench was there, just the same, and within a book-cover’s thickness of the surface, too—blenched, and trembled.

But younger knights, who were facing their first dragons in battle, blenched and cowered, some shaming themselves by crying out or turning from the awesome sight before them.