bleach
A chemical, such as sodium hypochlorite or hydrogen peroxide, or a preparation of such a chemical, used for disinfecting or whitening.
A variety of bleach.
To treat with bleach, especially so as to whiten (fabric, paper, etc.) or lighten (hair).
To be whitened or lightened (by the sun, for example).
The white sheet bleaching on the hedge, / With heigh! the sweet birds, O, how they sing!
[…] when Mrs. Giddy-gaddy came to take out her clothes, deep green stains appeared on every thing, for she had forgotten the green silk lining of a certain cape, and its color had soaked nicely into the pink and blue gowns, the little chemises, and even the best ruffled petticoat. […] “Lay them on the grass to bleach,” said Daisy, with an air of experience.
The autumn trees, ravaged as they are, take on the flash of tattered flags kindling in the gloom of cool cathedral caves where gold letters on marble pages describe death in battle and how bones bleach and burn far away in Indian sands.
(biology, of corals) To lose color due to stress-induced expulsion of symbiotic unicellular algae.
(figurative) To make meaningless; to divest of meaning; to make empty.
An act of bleaching; exposure to the sun.
(archaic) Pale; bleak.
(obsolete) A disease of the skin characterized by hypopigmentation and itching, believed in the 17th century to be a form a leprosy.
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