Blacken
['blæk(ə)n] or ['blækən]
Definition
(verb.) make or become black; 'The smoke blackened the ceiling'; 'The ceiling blackened'.
Edited by Ahmed--From WordNet
Definition
(v. t.) To make or render black.
(v. t.) To make dark; to darken; to cloud.
(v. t.) To defame; to sully, as reputation; to make infamous; as, vice blackens the character.
(v. i.) To grow black or dark.
Typed by Benjamin
Synonyms and Synonymous
v. a. [1]. Darken, make black.[2]. Vilify, defame, slander, calumniate, asperse, traduce, malign, abuse, revile, rail at, sneer at, run down, speak ill of.
Typed by Debora
Synonyms and Antonyms
SYN:Bespatter, befoul, bedaub, defame, decry, calumniate, dishonor, asperse,traduce, vilify, slander, malign
ANT:Vindicate, clear, eulogize
Edited by Della
Examples
- All Meryton seemed striving to blacken the man who, but three months before, had been almost an angel of light. Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice.
- They all try to blacken him before me; but I will care for no pain, if he is not to blame. George Eliot. Middlemarch.
- He had ignored the whole of the industrial sea which surged in coal-blackened tides against the grounds of the house. D. H. Lawrence. Women in Love .
- The rest only had their faces blackened. Charlotte Bronte. Shirley.
- The experiment by which it was illustrated consisted in pouring the solution on chalk, which became blackened by exposure to light. Frederick C. Bakewell. Great Facts.
- So blackened by the flying particles of rubbish as to be unrecognisable, they ran back from the gateway into the street, crying and shrieking. Charles Dickens. Little Dorrit.
- There was a worn, blackened leather wine bottle on the wall of the sentry box, there were some newspapers and there was no telephone. Hemingway, Ernest. For Whom The Bell Tolls.
- The whole party, Small included, are blackened with dust and dirt and present a fiendish appearance not relieved by the general aspect of the room. Charles Dickens. Bleak House.
- There was a huge fireplace in the room into which they walked, and the chimney was blackened with smoke; but no warm blaze lighted it up now. Charles Dickens. The Pickwick Papers.
- There was no powder-blackening on the clothes. Arthur Conan Doyle. The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.
- They stood together minute after minute, without further speech, each looking at the blackening scene, and each thinking his and her own thoughts. Thomas Hardy. The Return of the Native.
- In 1801 Ritter proved the existence of such invisible rays beyond the violet end of the visible spectrum by the power they possessed of blackening chloride of silver. Edward W. Byrn. The Progress of Invention in the Nineteenth Century.
Editor: Lyle