bleach

Plural: bleaches

Noun

• the whiteness that results from removing the color from something
  • "a complete bleach usually requires several applications"
• an agent that makes things white or colorless
• the act of whitening something by bleaching it (exposing it to sunlight or using a chemical bleaching agent)
• A chemical, such as sodium hypochlorite or hydrogen peroxide, or a preparation of such a chemical, used for disinfecting or whitening.
• A variety of bleach.
• An act of bleaching; exposure to the sun.
• A disease of the skin characterized by hypopigmentation and itching, believed in the 17th century to be a form of leprosy.

Verb

Verb Forms: bleached, bleaching, bleaches

• To lighten or whiten, typically with chemicals or sunlight.
• remove color from
  • "The sun bleached the red shirt"
• make whiter or lighter
  • "bleach the laundry"
• To treat with bleach, especially so as to whiten (fabric, paper, etc.) or lighten (hair).
• To be whitened or lightened (by the sun, for example).
• To lose color due to stress-induced expulsion of symbiotic unicellular algae.
• To make meaningless; to divest of meaning; to make empty.

Adj

• Pale; bleak.

Examples

• Once coral bleaching begins, corals tend to continue to bleach even if the stressor is removed.
• semantically bleached words that have become illocutionary particles
• The thought of drawing a blank tile made his hopes BLEACH away.

Synonyms

blanching agent, bleach out, bleaching agent, decolor, decolorise, decolorize, decolour, decolourise, decolourize, discolorise, discolorize, discolourise, whitener, blanch

Anagrams of bleach