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To make or render black. While the long funerals blacken all the way. Pope

One who blackens.

To blacken with smut; to foul with soot.

To make black; to blacken; to soil; to sully. They have their teeth blacked, both men and women, for they say a dog hath his teeth white, therefore they will black theirs. Hakluyt. Sins which black thy soul. J. Fletcher.

A wash that blackens, as opposed to whitewash; hence, figuratively, calumny. To remove as far as he can the modern layers of black wash, and let the man himself, fair or foul, be seen. C. Kingsley.

To blacken (leather, shoes, etc.) with blacking.

To blacken; also, to defile. [Obs. or Dial.] Wyclif.

y men's doings. Strype. Syn. asperse; slander; defame; vilify; traduce; belie; bespatter; blacken; libel. See Asperse.

To blacken; to sully; to stain; to tarnish; to damage; -- esp. used of reputation or character. I would not be a stander-by to hear My sovereign mistress clouded so, without My present vengeance taken. Shak.

To blacken thoroughly; to make very black. Boyle.

Fig.: A blackening; defamation. The vigorous denigration of science. Morley.

One who, or that which, blackens.

A disease in wheat, in which the blackened and contracted grain, or ear, is filled with minute worms.

. Your murderous game is nearly up. Blackw. Mag. It was obviously Lord Macaulay's game to blacken the greatest literary champion of the cause he had set himself to attack. Saintsbury.

To expose to infamy; to blacken. I'll gibbet up his name. Oldham.

rge cat-tail. These plants are often called "blackboys" from the large trunks denuded and blackened by fire. They yield two kinds of fragrant resin, called Botany-bay gum, and Gum Acaroides.

To put ink upon; to supply with ink; to blacken, color, or daub with ink.

Fig.: To darken; to blacken; to obscure. The welkin pitched with sullen could. Addison.

To smoke; to blacken with smoke; to rub with soot. [Obs.]

To smear; to smutch; to soil; to blacken with smoke.