Definition of "blanch"

blanch¹

/blɑːnt͡ʃ/

verb
third-person singular simple present blanches, present participle blanching, simple past and past participle blanched
1. (intransitive) To grow or become white.
  Quotations
  Nurse Cramer's face blanched and she turned to Dunbar desperately for aid.
  1961 November 10, Joseph Heller, “The Soldier in White”, in Catch-22 […], New York, N.Y.: Simon and Schuster, page 171
2. (transitive) To take the color out of, and make white; to bleach.
3. (transitive, cooking) To cook by dipping briefly into boiling water, then directly into cold water.
4. (transitive) To whiten, for example the surface of meat, by plunging into boiling water and afterwards into cold, so as to harden the surface and retain the juices
5. (transitive) To bleach by excluding the light, for example the stalks or leaves of plants, by earthing them up or tying them together
6. (transitive) To make white by removing the skin of, for example by scalding
7. (transitive) To give a white lustre to (silver, before stamping, in the process of coining)
8. (intransitive) To cover (sheet iron) with a coating of tin.
9. (transitive, figuratively) To give a favorable appearance to; to whitewash; to whiten;
  Quotations
  Blanch over the blackest and most absurd things.
  c. 1680, John Tillotson, The indispensable necessity of the knowledge of the Holy Scripture

blanch²

/blɑːnt͡ʃ/

verb
third-person singular simple present blanches, present participle blanching, simple past and past participle blanched
1. To avoid, as from fear; to evade; to leave unnoticed.
  Quotations
  Ifs and ands to qualify words of treason; whereby every man might express his malice, and blanch his danger.
  1622, Francis, Lord Verulam, Viscount St. Alban [i.e. Francis Bacon], The Historie of the Raigne of King Henry the Seventh, […], London: […] W[illiam] Stansby for Matthew Lownes, and William Barret
  I suppose you will not blanch Paris in your way.
  1624-39, Sir Henry Wotton, Reliquiæ Wottonianæ (published 1651), page 343
2. To cause to turn aside or back.
3. To use evasion.
  Quotations
  Books will speak plain, when counsellors blanch.
  1625, Francis [Bacon], “Of Counsel”, in The Essayes […], 3rd edition, London: […] Iohn Haviland for Hanna Barret