whiten

Meanings

Verb

turn white
- "This detergent will whiten your laundry"
(To cause) to become white or whiter; to bleach or blanch.
To increase the security of an iterated block cipher by steps that combine the data with portions of the key.
To normalize data so that the covariance matrix becomes the identity matrix; i.e., to remove correlations so each variable has unit variance.

Origin / 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”).

Synonyms

white

Antonyms

blacken

Scrabble Score: 12

whiten is a valid Scrabble (US) TWL word
whiten is a valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
whiten is a valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary

Words With Friends Score: 12

whiten is a valid Words With Friends word