different between blench vs recoil

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /bl?nt??/

Etymology 1

From Middle English blench and blenchen, from Old English blen?an (“to deceive, cheat”), from Proto-Germanic *blankijan? (“to deceive”), from Proto-Indo-European *b?ley?-. Cognate with Icelandic blekkja (“to deceive, cheat, impose upon”).. Doublet of blink, blank, blanch, bleach, and bleak.

Verb

blench (third-person singular simple present blenches, present participle blenching, simple past and past participle blenched)

1. (intransitive) To shrink; start back; give way; flinch; turn aside or fly off.
   • a. 1870, William Cullen Bryant, The Battle-Field

     Blench not at thy chosen lot.

   • 1820, Francis Jeffrey, "Life of Curran", in The Edinburgh Review May 1820

     This painful, heroic task he undertook, and never blenched from its fulfilment.

   • 1998, Andrew Hurley (translator), Jorge Louis Borges, "Ibn-Hakam al-Bokhari, Murdered in His Labyrnth", Collected Fictions, Penguin Putnam, p.255

     "This," said Dunraven with a vast gesture that did not blench at the cloudy stars, and that took in the black moors, the sea, and a majestic, tumbledown edifice that looked like a stable fallen upon hard times, "is my ancestral land."
2. (intransitive, of the eye) To quail.
3. (transitive) To deceive; cheat.
4. (transitive) To draw back from; shrink; avoid; elude; deny, as from fear.
   • 2012, Jan 13, Polly Toynbee, "Welfare cuts: Cameron's problem is that people are nicer than he thinks", The Guardian

     Yesterday the government proclaimed no turning back, but the lords representing the likes of the disability charity Scope or Macmillan Cancer Support should make them blench.

5. (transitive) To hinder; obstruct; disconcert; foil.
6. (intransitive) To fly off; to turn aside.

Noun

blench (plural blenches)

1. A deceit; a trick.
2. A sidelong glance.

Descendants

• blanch (avoid)

Etymology 2

From Old French blanchir (“to bleach”).

Verb

blench (third-person singular simple present blenches, present participle blenching, simple past and past participle blenched)

1. (obsolete) To blanch.
   • 1934, Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer, Harper Perennial (2005), p.283

     The seasons are come to a stagnant stop, the trees blench and wither, the wagons role in the mica ruts with slithering harplike thuds.

Related terms

• blench holding
• unblenching

References

Middle English

Noun

blench

1. A deceit; a trick.
   • c. 1210, MS. Cotton Caligula A IX f.246.

English

Etymology

From Old French reculer.

Pronunciation

• (verb)
  • IPA^(key): /???k??l/
  • Rhymes: -??l
• (noun)
  • IPA^(key): /??i?k??l/

Noun

recoil (countable and uncountable, plural recoils)

1. A starting or falling back; a rebound; a shrinking.

2. The state or condition of having recoiled.
   • 1850, Frederick William Robertson, second address delivered to the members of the Working Men's Institute, Brighton

     The recoil from formalism is skepticism.

3. (firearms) The energy transmitted back to the shooter from a firearm which has fired. Recoil is a function of the weight of the weapon, the weight of the projectile, and the speed at which it leaves the muzzle.
4. An escapement in which, after each beat, the scape-wheel recoils slightly.

Synonyms

• (firearms): kick

Translations

Verb

recoil (third-person singular simple present recoils, present participle recoiling, simple past and past participle recoiled)

1. (intransitive) To pull back, especially in disgust, horror or astonishment. [from 16th c.]

2. (intransitive, now rare) To retreat before an opponent. [from 14th c.]
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, V.11:

     that rude rout […] forced them, how ever strong and stout / They were, as well approv'd in many a doubt, / Backe to recule […]

3. (obsolete, intransitive) To retire, withdraw. [15th-18th c.]
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, I.x:

     Ye both forwearied be: therefore a whyle / Iread you rest, and to your bowres recoyle.

   • 1838, Thomas De Quincey, The Household Wreck

     The solemnity of her demeanor made it impossible […] that we should recoil into our ordinary spirits.
4. (of a firearm) To quickly push back when fired

Translations

Anagrams

• coiler