whiten
/ˈ(h)waɪ̯.tən/verb
whiten is spelled W-H-I-T-E-N: 6 letters and 2 syllables. It appears about once in every 4 million words in written English, the 58,714th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a verb, whiten means “(To cause) to become white or whiter; to bleach or blanch” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).
How many letters and syllables are in whiten?
| Letters | 6: W-H-I-T-E-N |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | about once in every 4 million words; the 58,714th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none 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 whiten?
Whiten appears about once in every 4 million words in written English, the 58,714th 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 whiten?
- /ˈ(h)waɪ̯.tən/
- [ˈ(h)waɪ̯tn̩]
- [ˈ(h)waɪ̯ʔn̩]
Whiten 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: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-whiten.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of whiten
- whitens present, singular, he/she/it
- whitening participle, present
- whitened participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does whiten mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
verb
- 1
(To cause) to become white or whiter; to bleach or blanch.
Age had whitened his hair.
- 2
To increase the security of an iterated block cipher by steps that combine the data with portions of the key.
- 3
To normalize data so that the covariance matrix becomes the identity matrix; i.e., to remove correlations so each variable has unit variance.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Whiten in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | blanchir |
| German | weißen , weiß werden |
| Portuguese | branquear, embranquecer |
| Spanish | blanquear, albear |
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 whiten come from?
From Middle English whitenen, whitnen, from Old Norse hvítna (“to whiten”), from Proto-Germanic *hwītnōną (“to whiten, become white”), from Proto-Indo-European *kwind-, *kwint- (“bright”), equivalent to white + -en. Cognate with Icelandic hvítna (“to whiten”), Swedish vitna, hvitna (“to whiten”), Danish hvidne (“to whiten”). Compare Old English hwītian (“to whiten, become white, be white, make white”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).