Blend Meaning
/blɛnd/Definition, CEFR level B2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
Listen pronunciation
Definition
nounA mixture of two or more things.
nounA word formed by combining two other words; a portmanteau word.
Sentence Examples
The sky seemed to blend with the sea.
Blend milk and eggs together.
Blend the flour with the milk to make a smooth paste.
CEFR Practice Quiz
To make the sauce creamy, you must ____ the tomatoes and cream together.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The artist used a special brush to ____ the two different paint colors.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English blenden, either from Old English blandan, blondan, ġeblandan, ġeblendan or from Old Norse blanda (“to blend, mix”) (which was originally a strong verb with the present-tense stem blend; compare blendingr (“a blending, a mixture; a half-breed”)), whence also Danish blande, or from a blend of the Old English and Old Norse terms; both ultimately from Proto-Germanic *blandaną (“to blend; mix; combine”). Compare Middle Dutch blanden (“to mix”), Gothic 𐌱𐌻𐌰𐌽𐌳𐌰𐌽 (blandan), Old Church Slavonic блєсти (blesti, “to go astray”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Blends, also known as portmanteau words, are not an original part of English. That is, none occur in Old or Middle English, nor even in Elizabethan English, with the earliest known example being the rare and now obsolete term tomaxe, a blend of tomahawk and axe."
— 2018, James Lambert, “A multitude of ‘lishes’: The nomenclature of hybridity”, in English World-Wide, page 10:
"There is a tone of solemn and sacred feeling that blends with our conviviality."
— 1819 June 23 – 1820 September 13, Geoffrey Crayon [pseudonym; Washington Irving], “(please specify the title)”, in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., New York, N.Y.: […] C[ornelius] S. Van Winkle, […], →OCLC:
"To feel no other breezes than are blown / Through its tall woods with high romances blent"
— 1817, John Keats, Happy is England!:
"Sepia Delft tiles surrounded the fireplace, their crudely drawn Biblical scenes in faded cyclamen blending with the pinkish pine, while above them, instead of a mantelshelf, there was an archway high enough to form a balcony with slender balusters and a tapestry-hung wall behind."
— 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 3, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:
"Earless ghost swift moths become “invisible” to echolocating bats by forming mating clusters close[…]above vegetation and effectively blending into the clutter of echoes that the bat receives from the leaves and stems around them. Many insects probably use this strategy, which is a close analogy to crypsis in the visible world—camouflage and other methods for blending into one’s visual background."
— 2013 May-June, William E. Conner, “An Acoustic Arms Race”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3, pages 206–7:
Explore More B2 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
To make the sauce creamy, you must ____ the tomatoes and cream together.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The artist used a special brush to ____ the two different paint colors.