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Blench   Listen
verb
Blench  v. i.  (past & past part. blenched; pres. part. blenching)  
1.
To shrink; to start back; to draw back, from lack of courage or resolution; to flinch; to quail. "Blench not at thy chosen lot." "This painful, heroic task he undertook, and never blenched from its fulfillment."
2.
To fly off; to turn aside. (Obs.) "Though sometimes you do blench from this to that."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Blench" Quotes from Famous Books



... be looked out on the map, but the chauffeur, trained to the hour, did not blench. However, when he found the Rue Delambre, the success with which he repudiated ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett

... before the great * Nor over fording lesser men dost blench Who gildest dross by dirham gathering, * No otter ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton

... of the worst lines in mere expression. 'Blench' is perhaps miswritten for 'blanch;' if not, I don't understand the word. Blench signifies to flinch. If 'blanch' be the word, the next ought to be 'hair.' You cannot here use brow for the hair ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... understood were, for the future, to be made independently of him? But though he asked himself this, he was wishing violently that she should care; he was hoarding up the announcement of his Sunday absence to spring upon her and make her blench. He hardly understood his purpose himself, so vague and racked, so resentful and remorseful were his thoughts. But that was in his heart—to surprise, alarm and worry her. If only, when he observed casually: "I ...
— Married Life - The True Romance • May Edginton

... a second chance to try, Where, Pushkara, we will play for all or none. Who wins his throne and treasures from a prince, Must stand the hazard of the counter-cast— This is the accepted law. If thou dost blench, The next game we will play is 'life or death,' In chariot-fight; when, or of thee or me One shall lie satisfied: 'Descended realms, By whatsoever means, are to be sought,' The sages say, 'by whatsoever won.' Choose, ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... blenched, even then. She had not blenched since. And she never would blench. In spite of his gorgeous position and his unique reputation, in spite of her well-concealed but notorious pride in him, he still went in fear of that ageless woman, whose undaunted eye always told him that he was still the lad Denry, and her inferior in moral force. ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett

... very well under trying circumstances. Did not visibly blench; answered, in off-hand manner, that London Police had had opportunity of substituting the silent boot for those in ordinary use, and had not availed themselves of it. Some had objected on domestic grounds. Female friends engaged in responsible posts in certain households on their beat were accustomed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, March 25, 1893 • Various

... at fit time deliver me: [Giving letters. The provost knows our purpose and our plot. The matter being afoot, keep your instruction, And hold you ever to our special drift; Though sometimes you do blench from this to that, 5 As cause doth minister. Go call at Flavius' house, And tell him where I stay: give the like notice To Valentius, Rowland, and to Crassus, And bid them bring the trumpets to the gate; ...
— Measure for Measure - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare

... behold thee then in thy bodily shape, if thou be'st indeed a fiend," replied the dying knight; "think not that I will blench from thee. By the eternal dungeon, could I but grapple with these horrors that hover round me as I have done with mortal danger, Heaven or Hell should never say that I shrunk from ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester

... affectionate solicitude I must tell you that in that terrible moment Nais was marvellously calm and self-possessed. It could not, I think, be possible to see death nearer; yet neither before nor after the accident did my valiant little daughter even blench; her whole behavior showed the utmost resolution, and, thank God! her health has not suffered ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac

... Corsablis the next drew nigh, Miscreant Monarch of Barbary; Yet he spake like vassal staunch and bold— Blench would he not for all God's gold. The third, Malprimis, of Brigal's breed, More fleet of foot than the fleetest steed, Before King Marsil he raised his cry, "On unto Roncesvalles I: In mine ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various

... peasant did not blench even at this. Glaucon remained in the tent, translating and hearing all the details: how Hydarnes was to press the attack from the rear at early dawn, how Mardonius was to conduct another onset from the front. At last the general ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis

... and now I have got to tell you, when everything is over, and it can never do any good." She gave a dry sob, and cast upon him a look of keen reproach, which he knew he deserved. "I was engaged to him once. Or," she added, as if she could not bear to see him blench, "he could think so. It was the year after you were ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells

... pipes my bridal tell, The Links of Forth shall hear the knell, The guards shall start in Stirling's porch; And, when I light the nuptial torch, 680 A thousand villages in flames Shall scare the slumbers of King James! —Nay, Ellen, blench not thus away, And, mother, cease these signs, I pray; I meant not all my heat might say. 685 Small need of inroad, or of fight, When the sage Douglas may unite Each mountain clan in friendly band, To guard the passes of their land, Till the foiled king, ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... and grazing steadily by day. Perhaps their stolidity infected me a little. Or perhaps what braced me was the great quantity of strong tea that I consumed. Anyhow I had begun to feel that if Braxton came in now I shouldn't blench nor falter. ...
— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm

... not blench, nor would he; being half French and of good blood, at a time when good French blood ran the more generously for a half century of war. He would not have blenched, even if he had not, from the sunlit view of God's earth and heaven which lay before ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman

... tell before you sleep!" Fred announced, sitting up. "Who feareth not God nor regardeth me will blench before the prospect of ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy

... that is afflicted. For our sakes graciously give a boon to this traveller Sanehat, this desert warrior who was born in Tamera (Egypt). He fled through fear of thee, and he departed to a far country because of his terror of thee. Doth not the face that gazeth on thine blench? Doth not the eye that gazeth into thine feel terrified?" Then His Majesty said, "Let him fear not, and let him not utter a sound of fear. He shall be a smer official among the princes of the palace, he shall be a member of the company of the shenit officials. Get ye gone to the ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge

... I should laugh more merrily, If my eyes were the only optics gazing, Upon a feat that's no doubt most amazing; The Thames' mouth occupied by a fine fleet! The sight—as the fleet's mine—of course is sweet, But there's one thought that rather makes me blench:— Supposing that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 93, August 13, 1887 • Various

... get out of the way; evade, elude, turn away from; set one's face against &c. (oppose) 708; deny oneself. shrink back; hang back, hold back, draw back; recoil &c. 277; retire &c. (recede) 287; flinch, blink, blench, shy, shirk, dodge, parry, make way for, give place to. beat a retreat; turn tail, turn one's back; take to one's heels; runaway, run for one's life; cut and run; be off like a shot; fly, flee; fly away, flee away, run away from; take flight, take to flight; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus

... enemy a cold and formidable hatred were for him; most other things against him. He drilled his troops seven hours a day. His discipline was of the sternest, his censure a thing to make the boldest officer blench. A blunder, a slight negligence, any disobedience of orders—down came reprimand, suspension, arrest, with an iron certitude, a relentlessness quite like Nature's. Apparently he was without imagination. He had but little sense of humour, and no ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... girl stood virtually alone—for the elder woman had fallen to weeping helplessly, and the attorney seemed to be unequal to this new combatant. Even so, and though her face betrayed trouble and some irresolution, she did not blench, but faced her accuser with a slowly rising passion that overcame ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman

... not—you did not blench. You should have told me before that it was your sister and not yourself who ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy

... these years? What was all this frenzy of rejoicing, this blare of trumpets, these ranks of grim men with weapons in their hands? The stunning truth fell on her; but, though she felt that all was lost, not a whit did she blench, but fronted them all as proudly as ever. One cannot but admire the dauntless woman, 'magnificent in sin.' But her cry of 'Treason! treason!' brought none to her side. As she stood solitary there, she must have felt that her day was over, and that nothing remained ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... red 'N' raisin' Cain because he had, Back in the caverns iv his 'ead, A 'oller tooth run ravin' mad. Pore Trigger up 'n' down the trench Was jiggin' like a blithered loan, 'N' every time she give a wrench You orter seen the beggar blench, You orter 'eard him ...
— 'Hello, Soldier!' - Khaki Verse • Edward Dyson

... wisdom, she had brought those words of tremendous import, but was ignorant of their value. But they could have availed her nothing in any case, now, with the stake there and these thousands of enemies about her. Yet they made every churchman there blench, and the preacher changed the subject with all haste. Well might those criminals blench, for Joan's appeal of her case to the Pope stripped Cauchon at once of jurisdiction over it, and annulled all that he and his judges had already done in the matter and all ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain

... Murther, though it haue no tongue, will speake With most myraculous Organ.[2] Ile haue these Players, Play something like the murder of my Father, Before mine Vnkle. Ile obserue his lookes, [Sidenote: 137] Ile tent him to the quicke: If he but blench[3] [Sidenote: if a doe blench] I know my course. The Spirit that I haue seene [Sidenote: 48] May[4] be the Diuell, and the Diuel hath power [Sidenote: May be a deale, and the deale] T'assume a pleasing shape, yea and perhaps Out of my Weaknesse, ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald

... and resuming his chair. "I own it. Let there be no more said about it. When a trouble comes to me, it conquers me. Little troubles I think I could bear. If it had been all else in all the world,—if it had been my life before my life was your life, I think that no one would have seen me blench. But now I find that when I am really tried, ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope

... the claims she might have, or could have, upon it at any time, past, present, or future, on account of her accident. There was Mrs. Stiles's hand, there was her seal; the date was yesterday. Mrs. Tarbell read the release, and then looked at Mr. Pope. But he did not blench. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various

... bully, an employer of bravos. At Jarnac he had been the last to turn from the shambles. Men called him cruel and vengeful even for those days—gone by now, thank God!—and whispered his name when they spoke of assassinations; saying commonly of him that he would not blench before a Guise, nor ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman

... turn Whig. But these exceptions are rare. For the most part men stick to their party and die as foolish as they were born—which is called consistency. Convinced sometimes against their will, they are of the same opinion still. Loyalty and obstinacy will look facts in the face and never blench, and every one remains truer to his social circle than to his private judgments. People's politics are their prejudices at a masked ball, and the Conservatives will vote Conservative and the Liberals Liberal, through ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill

... ONE WINK for thinking of what had become of my odious old monstre, and only got to rest in the morning after sending for Mr. Blench (for I was in a fever), who gave me a composing draught and left orders with Finette that I should be disturbed ON NO ACCOUNT. So that my poor old man's messenger, who had bien mauvaise mine Finette says, and sentoit le ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray

... e kyth a counsayl hym takes Then the king of the kingdom a counsel him takes, Wyth e best of his burnes, a blench for to make With the best of his men a device for to make; ay stel out on a stylle ny[gh]t er any steuen rysed They stole out on a still night ere any sound arose, & harde hurles ur[gh] e oste, er enmies hit wyste And hard hurled through the host, ere enemies it wist, Bot ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various



Words linked to "Blench" :   blanch, pale, colour



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