bleach

noun

1. (uncountable)A chemical, such as sodium hypochlorite or hydrogen peroxide, or a preparation of such a chemical, used for disinfecting or whitening.
2. (countable)A variety of bleach.
3. An act of bleaching; exposure to the sun.
4. (obsolete)A disease of the skin characterized by hypopigmentation and itching, believed in the 17th century to be a form of leprosy.

verb

1. (transitive)To treat with bleach, especially so as to whiten (fabric, paper, etc.) or lighten (hair).

   “Candifacio, to make whyte, to bleache, to make to glowe lyke a burnyng cole.”

   “The destruction of the colouring matters attached to the bodies to be bleached is effected either by the action of the air and light, of chlorine, or of sulphurous acid.”

2. (intransitive)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.”

3. (intransitive)To lose color due to stress-induced expulsion of symbiotic unicellular algae.

   “Once coral bleaching begins, corals tend to continue to bleach even if the stressor is removed.”

4. (figuratively, transitive)To make meaningless; to divest of meaning; to make empty.

   “semantically bleached words that have become illocutionary particles”

adj

1. (archaic)Pale; bleak.