blank
Meanings
adj
- White or pale; without colour.
- Free from writing, printing, or marks; having an empty space to be filled in.
- Lacking characteristics which give variety; uniform.
- Abject; absolute; complete; downright; sheer; utter.
- Without expression, usually because of incomprehension.
- Utterly confounded or discomfited.
- Empty; void; without result; fruitless; futile.
- Devoid of thoughts, memory, or inspiration.
- Of ammunition: having propellant but no bullets; unbulleted.
noun
- A small French coin, originally of silver, afterwards of copper, worth 5 deniers; also a silver coin of Henry V current in the parts of France then held by the English, worth about 8 pence .
- A nonplus [16th century].
- The white spot in the centre of a target; hence (figuratively) the object to which anything is directed or aimed, the range of such aim .
- A lot by which nothing is gained; a ticket in a lottery on which no prize is indicated [since the 16th century].
- An empty space; a void, for example on a paper .
- A space to be filled in on a form or template.
- Provisional words printed in italics (instead of blank spaces) in a bill before Parliament, being matters of practical detail, of which the final form is to be settled in committee .
- A document, paper, or form with spaces left blank to be filled in at the pleasure of the person to whom it is given (e.g. a blank charter, ballot, form, contract, etc.), or as the event may determine; a blank form .
- An empty form without substance; anything insignificant; nothing at all .
- An unprinted leaf of a book [20th century].
- Blank verse .
- A piece of material roughly cut, forged, cast, etc. to the size and shape of the thing to be made, and ready for the finishing operations; (coining) the disc of metal before stamping .
verb
- To make void; to erase.
- To ignore (a person) deliberately.
- To render ineffective by blanketing with turbulent airflow, such as from aircraft wake or reverse thrust.
- To prevent from scoring; for example, in a sporting event.
- To become blank.
- To experience a temporary lapse of memory; to be temporarily unable to remember a particular fact. (Commonly used in the first person, present progressive tense, and commonly followed by on to create a transitive phrasal verb.)
name
- A surname.
- Used as an anonymous placeholder for a person's name.
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
From Middle English blank, blonc, blaunc, blaunche, from Anglo-Norman blonc, blaunc, blaunche, from Old French blanc, feminine blanche, from Frankish *blank (“gleaming, white, blinding”), from Proto-Germanic *blankaz (“white, bright, blinding”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰleyǵ- (“to shine”). Akin to Old High German blanch (“shining, bright, white”) (German blank), Old English blanc (“white, grey”), blanca (“white steed”), Spanish blanco. More at blink, blind, blanch. Doublet of blanc.
Synonyms
Related words
Derived words
Translations
Previous
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.