If a stranger approaches you in a dark alley, it might cause you to
blench. Do you flinch or turn white? Actually, you could do both, and
both would be considered blenching because there are two separate verbs
spelled "blench" in English. The
blench that means "to flinch" derives from
blencan, an Old English word meaning "to deceive." The
blench meaning "to turn white" is an alteration of
blanch, from the French adjective
blanc
("white").
Clues to which meaning is intended can often be found in
context. The "flinch" use, for example, is strictly intransitive and
often followed by
from or
at ("blenched from the sight
of blood"; "didn’t blench at the sound of thunder"). The "whiten" use,
meanwhile, can be intransitive ("his skin blenched with terror") or
transitive ("the cold blenched her lips").
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