/ English Dictionary

WHITEN

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Turn white

Example:

This detergent will whiten your laundry

Synonyms:

white; whiten

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "whiten" is one way to...):

color; colour; discolor; discolour (change color, often in an undesired manner)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "whiten"):

bleach (make whiter or lighter)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Antonym:

blacken (make or become black)

Derivation:

whitener (an agent that makes things white or colorless)

whitening (changing to a lighter color)

Credits

 Context examples: 

He had gone beyond the sweep—some way along the Highbury road—the snow was nowhere above half an inch deep—in many places hardly enough to whiten the ground; a very few flakes were falling at present, but the clouds were parting, and there was every appearance of its being soon over.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

In this approach, a health worker applies dilute acetic acid to the cervix and inspects the cervix with the naked eye, looking for "aceto whitening, which indicates possible disease. Because of its convenience and low cost, VIA is widely used where more advanced screening methods are not available. However, it is known to be inaccurate and needs improvement.

(AI approach outperformed human experts in identifying cervical precancer, National Institutes of Health)

On the eve of the contest the peasants flocked in from the whole district of the Medoc, and the fields beyond the walls were whitened with the tents of those who could find no warmer lodging.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

An experimental drug reversed hair loss, hair whitening and skin inflammation in mice that were first fed a diet high in fat and cholesterol.

(New Experimental Drug Reverses Hair Loss, Skin Damage, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

The stars were fading, the sky was whitening, and the cold wind of morning blew pleasantly upon my face.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Patients with coronary artery disease had a statistically significant higher hair whitening score and higher coronary artery calcification than those without coronary artery disease.

(Grey Hair Linked with Increased Heart Disease Risk in Men, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

I never shall forget seeing her fall backward on the hard road, and lie there with her bonnet tumbled off, and her hair all whitened in the dust; nor, when I looked back from a distance, seeing her sitting on the pathway, which was a bank by the roadside, wiping the blood from her face with a corner of her shawl, while he went on ahead.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Our findings show that a Western diet causes hair loss, hair whitening and skin inflammation in mice, and we believe a similar process occurs in men who lose hair and experience hair whitening when they eat a diet high in fat and cholesterol, Chatterjee said in a Hopkins news release.

(New Experimental Drug Reverses Hair Loss, Skin Damage, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

Only age was an independent predictor of hair whitening.

(Grey Hair Linked with Increased Heart Disease Risk in Men, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

The frozen particles of ice, brushed from the blades of grass by the wind, and borne across my face; the hard clatter of the horse's hoofs, beating a tune upon the ground; the stiff-tilled soil; the snowdrift, lightly eddying in the chalk-pit as the breeze ruffled it; the smoking team with the waggon of old hay, stopping to breathe on the hill-top, and shaking their bells musically; the whitened slopes and sweeps of Down-land lying against the dark sky, as if they were drawn on a huge slate!

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

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