whitens

verb

present tense third-person singular of whiten
as in bleaches
to make white or whiter by removing color years of sunlight had almost completely whitened the flag

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of whitens According to Hill, good old-fashioned sunlight naturally kills bacteria, refreshes items, and whitens fabrics. — Mary Cornetta, Better Homes & Gardens, 4 Jan. 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for whitens
  1. bleaches
  2. fades
  3. brightens
Verb
  • Martin uses a color extractor to remove existing dye, then bleaches the hair (except the gray roots) to get it as light as possible.
    — Maggie Ryan, Flow Space, 25 Sep. 2026
  • His owner, Hannah Gleason from Oklahoma, told Newsweek that the merle gene isn’t a coloring gene rather than a gene that bleaches the fur and causes lack of pigmentation which can lead to birth defects, blindness, deafness, or sometimes all three.
    — Maria Azzurra Volpe, MSNBC Newsweek, 14 Oct. 2025
Definition of bleaches
Verb
  • Community organizations spent decades cultivating wealthy baby boomer donors, and so that connection fades with each generation removed from the original donors.
    — Sydney Lake, Fortune, 6 Oct. 2026
  • Its manganese spins continue fluctuating in preferred directions after long-range magnetic order fades.
    — Aamir Khollam, Interesting Engineering, 3 Oct. 2026
Definition of fades
Verb
  • At this, Newsom brightens, mentioning a framed photograph at home, a black-and-white image of Kennedy kneeling in front of a young boy next to an old beat-up car.
    — Joe Hagan, Vanity Fair, 30 Sep. 2026
  • Hydrogen peroxide brightens whites and removes stains without damaging fabric like bleach.
    — Daley Quinn, Southern Living, 24 Sep. 2026
Definition of brightens

Browse Nearby Words

whitening
whitens
white-tie
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Cite this Entry

“Whitens.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/whitens. Accessed 8 Oct. 2026.

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