Verb

(es)

To grow or become white

his cheek blanched with fear

the rose blanches in the sun

To take the color out of, and make white; to bleach

to blanch linen

age has blanched his hair

(cooking) To cook by dipping briefly into boiling water, then directly into cold water.

To whiten, as the surface of meat, by plunging into boiling water and afterwards into cold, so as to harden the surface and retain the juices

To bleach by excluding the light, as the stalks or leaves of plants, by earthing them up or tying them together

To make white by removing the skin of, as by scalding

to blanch almonds

To give a white luster to (silver, before stamping, in the process of coining)

To cover (sheet iron) with a coating of tin.

(figuratively) To whiten; to give a favorable appearance to; to whitewash; to palliate

* Tillotson

Blanch over the blackest and most absurd things.

Verb

(es)

To avoid, as from fear; to evade; to leave unnoticed.

* Francis Bacon

Ifs and ands to qualify the words of treason, whereby every man might express his malice and blanch his danger.

* Reliq. Wot

I suppose you will not blanch Paris in your way.

To cause to turn aside or back.

to blanch a deer

To use evasion.

* Francis Bacon

Books will speak plain, when counsellors blanch .

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Verb

(es)

To cook something in simmering water.

* {{quote-book, year=1931, author=

, title=Death Walks in Eastrepps , chapter=1/1 citation , passage=Eldridge closed the despatch-case with a snap and, rising briskly, walked down the corridor to his solitary table in the dining-car. Mulligatawny soup, poached turbot, roast leg of lamb—the usual railway dinner.}}

To be cooked in simmering water

* Francis Bacon

The white of an egg with spirit of wine, doth bake the egg into clots, as if it began to poach .

To become soft or muddy.

* Mortimer

Chalky and clay lands chap in summer, and poach in winter.

To make soft or muddy.

Cattle coming to drink had punched and poached the river bank into a mess of mud.

(Tennyson)

(obsolete) To stab; to pierce; to spear, as fish.

(Carew)

(obsolete) To force, drive, or plunge into anything.

* Sir W. Temple

his horse poaching one of his legs into some hollow ground

(obsolete) To begin and not complete.

(Francis Bacon)

Verb

(es)

(intransitive) To take game or fish illegally.

(intransitive) To take anything illegally or unfairly.

(intransitive) To cause an employee or customer to switch from a competing company to your own company.