blend
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: enpr: blĕnd
ipa: /blɛnd/
rhymes: -ɛnd
homophone: blende
Forms: form: blends
form: blending
form: blended
form: blended
form: blent
form: blent
Etymology: From Middle English blenden, either from Old English blandan, blondan, ġeblandan, ġeblendan or from Old Norse blanda (“to blend, mix”) (which was originally a strong verb with the present-tense stem blend; compare blendingr (“a blending, a mixture; a half-breed”)), whence also Danish blande, or from a blend of the Old English and Old Norse terms; both ultimately from Proto-Germanic *blandaną (“to blend; mix; combine”). Compare Middle Dutch blanden (“to mix”), Gothic 𐌱𐌻𐌰𐌽𐌳𐌰𐌽 (blandan), Old Church Slavonic блєсти (blesti, “to go astray”).
Senses: examples: text: To make hummus you need to blend chickpeas, olive oil, lemon juice and garlic.
synonyms: word: blend
word: fuse
word: homogenize
word: inosculate
word: uniformize
word: admix
word: amalgamate
word: bemingle
word: blend
word: combine
word: commingle
word: intermingle
word: intermix
word: mang
word: meddle
word: ming
word: mingle
word: mix
word: mix up
word: agglomerate
word: aggregate
word: alloy
word: amalgamate
word: blend
word: coalesce
word: combine
word: consolidate
word: conflate
word: embody
word: fuse
word: integrate
word: mass
word: meld
word: merge
word: unite
glosses: To mingle; to mix; to unite intimately; to pass or shade insensibly into each other.
examples: text: There is a tone of solemn and sacred feeling that blends with our conviviality.
ref: 1819 June 23 – 1820 September 13, Geoffrey Crayon [pseudonym; Washington Irving], “(please specify the title)”, in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., New York, N.Y.: […] C[ornelius] S. Van Winkle, […], →OCLC:
text: To feel no other breezes than are blown / Through its tall woods with high romances blent
ref: 1817, John Keats, Happy is England!:
text: Sepia Delft tiles surrounded the fireplace, their crudely drawn Biblical scenes in faded cyclamen blending with the pinkish pine, while above them, instead of a mantelshelf, there was an archway high enough to form a balcony with slender balusters and a tapestry-hung wall behind.
ref: 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 3, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:
text: Earless ghost swift moths become “invisible” to echolocating bats by forming mating clusters close[…]above vegetation and effectively blending into the clutter of echoes that the bat receives from the leaves and stems around them. Many insects probably use this strategy, which is a close analogy to crypsis in the visible world—camouflage and other methods for blending into one’s visual background.
ref: 2013 May-June, William E. Conner, “An Acoustic Arms Race”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3, pages 206–7:
glosses: To be mingled or mixed.
examples: text: These stormes, which now his beauty blend,
Shall turn to calmes.
ref: 1595, Edmunde Spenser [i.e., Edmund Spenser], “[Amoretti.] Sonnet LXII”, in Amoretti and Epithalamion. […], London: […] [Peter Short] for William Ponsonby, →OCLC:
glosses: To pollute by mixture or association; to spoil or corrupt; to blot; to stain.
Derived terms: blendability
blendable
blended
blender
blendery
blend in
blendingly
blendshape
blendstock
blend up
blendy
blorph
blunder
deblend
downblend
interblend
misblend
preblend
reblend