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PlainSpell

blacken

/ˈblækən/verb

blacken is spelled B-L-A-C-K-E-N: 7 letters and 2 syllables. It appears about once in every 6 million words in written English, the 70,702nd most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a verb, blacken means “To cause to be or become black” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).

How many letters and syllables are in blacken?

Letters7: B-L-A-C-K-E-N
Syllables2 (from its American pronunciation)
In writingabout once in every 6 million words; the 70,702nd most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How common is blacken?

Blacken appears about once in every 6 million words in written English, the 70,702nd most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce blacken?

  • /ˈblækən/

Blacken has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-blacken.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of blacken

  • blackens present, singular, he/she/it
  • blackening participle, present
  • blackened participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does blacken mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

verb

  1. 1

    To cause to be or become black.

  2. 2

    To become black.

    The sky blackened as the storm clouds rolled in.

  3. 3

    To make dirty.

  4. 4

    To defame or sully.

  5. 5

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

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Blacken in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchnoircir (make black), souiller (make dirty), salir (defame, sully)
Germanschwärzen (make black), anschwärzen (defame, sully), verdunkeln (become black)
Portugueseenegrecer (make black), denegrir (make dirty), conspurcar (defame, sully)
Spanishennegrecer (make black), tiznar (defame, sully)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does blacken come from?

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

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

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