bleach

UK[bliːt͡ʃ]US[blit͡ʃ]

nounB1+2 meanings Common in everyday speech and writing · #5,503 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: bleaches

Bleach is a harsh liquid that whitens and kills germs. Household bleach, a splash of bleach, bleach the sink.

Never mix it with anything else: with ammonia it makes chloramine gas and with acid it makes chlorine, and both have killed people cleaning bathrooms. It works by breaking the chemical bonds that make colour. The Old English meant to whiten.

Definitions of bleach

1nounbleachA harsh liquid that whitens and kills germs.B1+
“She poured a little bleach into the toilet and scrubbed it clean.”
2verbwhitenTo make something white or paler, with a chemical or with strong sunlight.B2
“The sun had bleached the curtains almost white.”

Also practised as

verbTo whiten and disinfect with a strong chemical.

Where it comes from

Old English blaecan means to whiten, from a Germanic root about paleness. Bleak is a relative.

Proto-Indo-European
*bʰleyǵ-
Proto-Indo-European
*bʰel- — to shine
Proto-Germanic
*blaikijaną
Proto-West Germanic
*blaikijan
Old English
blǣċan — to bleach, whiten
Middle English
blechen
English, today
bleach

From Middle English blechen, from Old English blǣċan (“to bleach, whiten”), from Proto-West Germanic blaikijan, from Proto-Germanic blaikijaną, from Proto-Indo-European bʰel- (“to shine”). Cognate with Dutch bleken (“to bleach”), German bleichen (“to bleach”), Danish blege, Swedish bleka (“to bleach”). Related to Old English blāc (“pale”) (English blake; compare also bleak).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

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