bleach

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English blechen,^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English blǣcan (“to bleach, whiten, fade”),^[5][6][3][4] a causative verb made from the root of blāc (“shining, white, pale”).^[7][4][8] It goes back to Proto-Germanic *blaikijaną (“to make white”),^[3][6][9] from *blaikaz (“pale”),^[6][10][11] an o-grade adjective made to the strong verb *blīkaną.^[10][11] The verb is cognate with Old Norse bleikja, Dutch bleken and German bleichen, and the adjective with Old Norse bleikr, Old Saxon blēk, Old High German bleih, bleek and bleich.^{[3][8][6][12]} Etymonline traces the family to Proto-Indo-European *bʰel- (“to shine, flash, burn”),^[3][13] and Merriam-Webster compares Lithuanian blizgėti (“to glitter, shine”) and bǣl (“fire, pyre”).^[7] The same Germanic base gave bleak,^[9][12][14] and Etymonline thinks the root probably also produced black, perhaps because both black and white are colourless or both are linked with burning.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

To make white, to whiten: before 899, in Alfred's translation of Bede's Ecclesiastical History;^[4] Bosworth–Toller glosses the Old English verb "to bleach, whiten, fade".^[5] The Middle English verb is first recorded about 1200, in the Trinity Homilies, of washing cloth white in water.^[6][2]

Semantic evolution

From the start the verb was used above all of linen and other cloth whitened by washing and laying it in the sun;^[6][2] Johnson (1755) defined it as to whiten, "commonly to whiten by exposure to the open air", quoting Shakespeare's maidens who "bleach their summer smocks".^[15] In Middle English the past participle could be blaught or iblēched, and the phrase "blaught as snow" meant white as snow.^[3][2] From 1582 the verb was used more generally of taking the colour out of anything, from about 1760 of making a face pale with fear,^[6] and since the early 17th century (Shakespeare's Winter's Tale) it was also intransitive, "to become white or pale".^[6][3] Chemical bleaching added the technical senses of the 19th century, such as removing the silver image from a photographic print (1889).^[6] The noun in its modern senses, an act of bleaching or a bleaching agent, is a fresh formation from the verb: Etymonline dates them to 1881–1882 and the OED to 1887 and 1898, while Merriam-Webster gives 1746 for the act of bleaching.^[3][6][7] An Old English noun blǣce had meant leprosy, and blǣco paleness, a sense the OED records until 1400.^[3][6][12] In 19th-century American student slang to bleach was to miss a class or morning chapel.^[16]

Timeline

• before 899 – Old English blǣcan, in Alfred's Bede.^[4]
• c. 1200 – blechen, to whiten cloth by washing and sunlight.^[6][2]
• 1582 – to take the colour out of something, especially by exposure.^[6]
• before 1616 – intransitive, to become white or pale.^[6]
• 1746 – noun, an act of bleaching, in Merriam-Webster's dating.^[7]
• c. 1760 – to make pale with fear.^[6]
• 1836 – American college slang, to skip a class.^[16]
• 1881 – noun, a bleaching agent (Etymonline; the OED has 1898).^[3][6]
• 1889 – in photography, to remove the silver image from a print.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To make something white or colourless, by exposure to sunlight or with chemicals: She bleached the old tablecloths in the garden.^[17][7][6]
2. To become white or pale: The driftwood had bleached on the beach.^[17][6]
3. (photography) To remove the silver image from a developed negative or print.^[6]

Noun

1. A chemical used for bleaching, such as a solution used to whiten laundry or lighten hair.^[17][7]
2. The act of bleaching.^[17][7][6]
3. The degree of whiteness that bleaching gives.^[17][7]

Word family

• bleachable
• bleachability
• bleachery
• nonbleach
• overbleach
• bleacher
• rebleach

Related words

• bleak
• black
• blake
• blight

Usage notes

Several other words spelled bleach are now obsolete or dialectal: a Middle English noun meaning a blacking, ink or shoemakers' black, and a verb "to blacken" recorded by Cotgrave (1611), both related to black;^[6][18] in Northumberland the noun was later a black carbonaceous shale found near coal seams.^[19] In Scotland, Northumberland and Cheshire a dialect verb bleach meant to strike or beat, and of rain to drive in.^[19]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
5. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
9. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
12. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
14. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
16. ^ a b Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
17. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
18. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
19. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)