whiten

Etymology

From Middle English whitenen, whitnen, from Old Norse hvítna (“to whiten”), from Proto-Germanic *hwītnōną (“to whiten, become white”), from Proto-Indo-European *kwind-, *kwint- (“bright”), equivalent to white +‎ -en. Cognate with Icelandic hvítna (“to whiten”), Swedish vitna, hvitna (“to whiten”), Danish hvidne (“to whiten”). Compare Old English hwītian (“to whiten, become white, be white, make white”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈ(h)waɪ̯.tən/, [ˈ(h)waɪ̯tn̩], [ˈ(h)waɪ̯ʔn̩]

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɪtən

Verb

whiten (third-person singular simple present whitens, present participle whitening, simple past and past participle whitened)

1. (ergative) (To cause) to become white or whiter; to bleach or blanch.

   Age had whitened his hair.

   The trees in spring whiten with blossoms.

   • 2024 February 12, very tall bart, 1:34 from the start, in [YTP] Dennis Prager is crazy‎ (YouTube poop; video), spoken by Penis Prager (Dennis Prager):

     Whenever black people are furious with me, I walk over to them and whiten their face, and scream and scream and scream 'daddy’s the boss.'

2. (cryptography) To increase the security of an iterated block cipher by steps that combine the data with portions of the key.