blacken

present singular third person blackens · participle present blackening · participle past blackened · past blackened

1. causativetransitiveTo cause to be or become black.

   1 more example

   Iron and coal were the magnets that drew railways to this land of lovely valleys and silent mountains—for such it was a century-and-a-half ago, before man blackened the valleys with the smoke of his forges, scarred the green hills with his shafts and waste-heaps, and drove the salmon from the quiet Rhondda and the murmuring Taff.

   1939 September, D. S. Barrie, “The Railways of South Wales”, in Railway Magazine, page 157

   Synonyms: black, denigrate

2. ergativeintransitiveTo become black.

   The sky blackened as the storm clouds rolled in.

   Synonyms: black up, forswart, swarten

3. causativetransitiveTo make dirty.

   Synonyms: dirty, soil, assoil, beclart, bedaub, bedirty, imbrue (especially with blood), bedizen

4. To defame or sully.

   Synonyms: defame, denigrate, sully, taint, tarnish, assassinate, asperse, backbite

5. transitiveTo cook (meat or fish) by coating with pepper, etc., and quickly searing in a hot pan.