blanch

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• intransitive verb To take the color from; bleach.
• intransitive verb To whiten (a growing plant or plant part) by covering to cut off direct light.
• intransitive verb To whiten (a metal) by soaking in acid or by coating with tin.
• intransitive verb To scald (almonds, for example) in order to loosen the skin.
• intransitive verb To scald (food) briefly, as before freezing or as a preliminary stage in preparing a dish.
• intransitive verb To cause to turn white or become pale.
• intransitive verb To turn white or become pale.

from The Century Dictionary.

• White; pale.
• Same as blench.
• literally, pale fever; hence, to have the blanch fever is either to be in love or to be sick with wantonness.
• noun Same as blanc, 3.
• noun A white spot on the skin.
• noun In mining, a piece of ore found isolated in the hard rock.
• To blanch silver, to oxidize copper superficially, when present in an alloy with silver, by heating to redness in the air, and then dissolving out the oxid of copper by dilute sulphuric acid, thus leaving the surface of the object with the white appearance of pure silver.
• To make white; whiten by depriving of color; render colorless: as, to blanch linen.
• In horticulture, to whiten or prevent from becoming green by excluding the light: a process applied to the stems or leaves of plants, such as celery, lettuce, sea-kale, etc.
• To make pale, as with sickness, fear, cold, etc.
• Figuratively, to give a fair appearance to, as an immoral act; palliate; slur; pass over.
• In cookery, to soak (as meat or vegetables) in hot water, or to scald by a short, rapid boiling, for the purpose of producing firmness or whiteness.
• In the arts, to whiten or make lustrous (as metals) by acids or other means; also, to cover with a thin coating of tin.
• Synonyms and Etiolate, etc. See whiten.
• To become white; turn pale.
• To shun or avoid, as from fear; evade.
• To shrink; shift; equivocate.
• noun Lead ore mixed with other minerals.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• intransitive verb To grow or become white.
• transitive verb obsolete To avoid, as from fear; to evade; to leave unnoticed.
• transitive verb To cause to turn aside or back.
• intransitive verb obsolete To use evasion.
• noun (Mining) Ore, not in masses, but mixed with other minerals.
• transitive verb To take the color out of, and make white; to bleach.
• transitive verb (Gardening) To bleach by excluding the light, as the stalks or leaves of plants, by earthing them up or tying them together.
• transitive verb To make white by removing the skin of, as by scalding.
• transitive verb To whiten, as the surface of meat, by plunging into boiling water and afterwards into cold, so as to harden the surface and retain the juices.
• transitive verb To give a white luster to (silver, before stamping, in the process of coining.).
• transitive verb To cover (sheet iron) with a coating of tin.
• transitive verb Fig.: To whiten; to give a favorable appearance to; to whitewash; to palliate.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun ore, not in masses, but mixed with other minerals.
• verb To grow or become white
• verb To take the color out of, and make white; to bleach
• verb To avoid, as from fear; to evade; to leave unnoticed.
• verb To cause to turn aside or back
• verb To use evasion.
• verb cooking To cook by dipping briefly into boiling water, then directly into cold water.
• verb To whiten, as the surface of meat, by plunging into boiling water and afterwards into cold, so as to harden the surface and retain the juices
• verb To bleach by excluding the light, as the stalks or leaves of plants, by earthing them up or tying them together
• verb To make white by removing the skin of, as by scalding
• verb To give a white luster to (silver, before stamping, in the process of coining)