blacken

From Middle English blaknen, blakkenen, equivalent to black +‎ -en (verbal suffix).

• IPA^(key): /ˈblækən/

• Audio (US):

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• Rhymes: -ækən

blacken (third-person singular simple present blackens, present participle blackening, simple past and past participle blackened)

1. (transitive, causative) To cause to be or become black.

   Synonyms: black, denigrate; see also Thesaurus:blacken

   • 1939 September, D. S. Barrie, “The Railways of South Wales”, in Railway Magazine, page 157:

     Iron and coal were the magnets that drew railways to this land of lovely valleys and silent mountains—for such it was a century-and-a-half ago, before man blackened the valleys with the smoke of his forges, scarred the green hills with his shafts and waste-heaps, and drove the salmon from the quiet Rhondda and the murmuring Taff.

2. (intransitive, ergative) To become black.

   Synonyms: black up, forswart, swarten

   The sky blackened as the storm clouds rolled in.

3. (transitive, causative) To make dirty.

   Synonyms: dirty, soil; see also Thesaurus:dirty

4. To defame or sully.

   Synonyms: defame, denigrate, sully, taint, tarnish; see also Thesaurus:defame

5. (transitive) To cook (meat or fish) by coating with pepper, etc., and quickly searing in a hot pan.

blacken

1. definite singular of black