blacken

Etymology

It is formed from English black + -en,^[2][3][4] in Middle English as blaknen, also blakenen, from blak (“black”).^[5][6] The OED compares the verb whiten.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

To become black, to darken: about 1300, in Havelok, the OED's first quotation.^[2] Stratmann glosses to blakne there as "look black, grow angry".^[7] The OED adds that the quotation may instead mean "to turn pale or livid", by association with a similar verb.^[2] Etymonline dates "become black or dark" to about 1200,^[3] Dictionary.com the word to 1250–1300, and Merriam-Webster Unabridged to the 14th century.^[8][6]

Semantic evolution

The intransitive sense came first.^[2][3][4] The transitive "make black" is quoted by the OED and the Middle English Dictionary from before 1425, in a translation of Guy de Chauliac's surgery, of dyeing hair,^[2][5] though Etymonline has it from the early 14th century.^[3] Etymonline puts the figurative sense "to defame" in the early 15th century,^[3] while the OED's first quotation is from before 1649.^[2] Johnson (1755) gave "to make of a black colour" and "to darken" as his first two senses.^[9] Later uses are particular: blacking the face for concealment or a stage role (1699), polishing shoes or a stove (1730), bruising the eye (1808), charring by fire (1764), and in Cajun cooking the technique named in Paul Prudhomme's cookbook of 1984.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1300 – to become black, to darken.^[2]
• before 1425 – to make black or dark.^[2][5]
• before 1649 – to defame a person, or to damage a reputation.^[2]
• 1699 – to apply black colour to the body, especially the face.^[2]
• 1730 – to clean and polish shoes, a stove and the like with blacking.^[2]
• 1764 – to make black by fire; to char.^[2]
• 1808 – to bruise, especially around the eye.^[2]
• 1984 – in Cajun cookery, to cook meat or fish by the technique called blackening.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. To become black or darker: The sky blackened over the valley.^[6][10][2]
2. To make black or dirty: Smoke had blackened the old beams.^[6][10][2]
3. To defame or slander: blacken someone's name.^[10][6][2]
4. To char by exposure to fire.^[2]
5. In Cajun cooking, to prepare fish or meat by blackening.^[2]

Word family

• blackener

Related words

• black

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
6. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Stratmann, Francis Henry (1891), A Middle-English Dictionary, revised by Henry Bradley, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins