blench
/blɛnt͡ʃ/verb, noun
blench is spelled B-L-E-N-C-H: 6 letters. It appears about once in every 26 million words in written English, the 154,067th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a verb, blench means “To shrink; start back; give way; flinch; turn aside or fly off” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).
How many letters and syllables are in blench?
| Letters | 6: B-L-E-N-C-H |
|---|---|
| In writing | about once in every 26 million words; the 154,067th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How common is blench?
Blench appears about once in every 26 million words in written English, the 154,067th 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 blench?
- /blɛnt͡ʃ/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-blench.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of blench
- blenches present, singular, he/she/it, plural
- blenching participle, present
- blenched participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does blench mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
verb
- 1
To shrink; start back; give way; flinch; turn aside or fly off.
"This," said Dunraven with a vast gesture that did not blench at the cloudy stars, and that took in the black moors, the sea, and a majestic, tumbledown edifice that looked like a stable fallen upon hard times, "is my ancestral land."
- 2
To quail.
- 3
To deceive; cheat.
- 4
To draw back from; shrink; avoid; elude; deny, as from fear.
- 5
To hinder; obstruct; disconcert; foil.
- 6
To fly off; to turn aside.
- 7
obsoleteTo blanch.
noun
- 1
A deceit; a trick.
- 2
A sidelong glance.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Where does blench come from?
From Middle English blench (noun) and blenchen (verb), from Old English blenċan (“to deceive, cheat”), from Proto-West Germanic *blankijan, from Proto-Germanic *blankijaną (“to deceive”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰleyǵ-. Cognate with Icelandic blekkja (“to deceive, cheat, impose upon”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).