verb
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to make or become black or dirty
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(tr) to defame; slander (esp in the phrase blacken someone's name )
Other Word Forms
- blackener noun
Etymology
Origin of blacken
Middle English word dating back to 1250–1300; see origin at black, -en 1
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
A new scientific review suggests that Polygonum multiflorum, a root used in traditional Chinese medicine for more than a thousand years to "blacken hair and nourish essence," could be a promising alternative for managing AGA.
From Science Daily • Feb. 9, 2026
These incidents may temporarily blacken the eyes of the NBA and Major League Baseball but sports gambling is here to stay.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 5, 2025
Tossed with some sliced cabbage that’s spread on the pan next to the tofu, the sauce helps the thinner cabbage pieces singe and blacken appealingly.
From Seattle Times • Jan. 14, 2024
But as the ghostly figure draws nearer, its skin rots and its eyes blacken.
From New York Times • Mar. 31, 2023
The black leather shoes I had bought for fifty cents at the Dollar General Store were held together with safety pins, which I’d tried to blacken with a Magic Marker so you wouldn’t notice them.
From "The Glass Castle" by Jeannette Walls
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
