| Library / English Dictionary |
BLANK
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A cartridge containing an explosive charge but no bullet
Synonyms:
blank; blank shell; dummy
Classified under:
Nouns denoting man-made objects
Hypernyms ("blank" is a kind of...):
cartridge (ammunition consisting of a cylindrical casing containing an explosive charge and a bullet; fired from a rifle or handgun)
Sense 2
Meaning:
A piece of material ready to be made into something
Classified under:
Nouns denoting man-made objects
Hypernyms ("blank" is a kind of...):
flat solid; sheet (a flat artifact that is thin relative to its length and width)
Sense 3
Meaning:
A blank gap or missing part
Synonyms:
blank; lacuna
Classified under:
Nouns denoting man-made objects
Hypernyms ("blank" is a kind of...):
Sense 4
Meaning:
A blank character used to separate successive words in writing or printing
Example:
he said the space is the most important character in the alphabet
Synonyms:
blank; space
Classified under:
Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents
Hypernyms ("blank" is a kind of...):
character; graph; grapheme; graphic symbol (a written symbol that is used to represent speech)
II. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Complete and absolute
Example:
blank stupidity
Synonyms:
blank; utter
Classified under:
Similar:
complete (having every necessary or normal part or component or step)
Sense 2
Meaning:
(of a surface) not written or printed on
Example:
wide white margins
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Similar:
empty (holding or containing nothing)
Derivation:
blankness (the state of being blank; void; emptiness)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Not charged with a bullet
Example:
a blank cartridge
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
unloaded ((of weapons) not charged with ammunition)
Sense 4
Meaning:
Without comprehension
Example:
When I called her name, she gave me a blank look, as though she didn't know me
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
unperceiving; unperceptive (lacking perception)
III. (verb)
Verb forms
Present simple: I / you / we / they blank ... he / she / it blanks
Past simple: blanked
Past participle: blanked
-ing form: blanking
Sense 1
Meaning:
Keep the opposing (baseball) team from winning
Classified under:
Verbs of political and social activities and events
Hypernyms (to "blank" is one way to...):
keep; prevent (stop (someone or something) from doing something or being in a certain state)
Sentence frame:
Somebody ----s somebody
Context examples:
It could not have fallen from above, for these, as you see, are all blank walls.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Very likely; but it is blank and cool—'Farewell.'
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
“We have all heard of your siege of Capua, and how you ran up your ship’s guns without trenches or parallels, and fired point-blank through the embrasures.”
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
“Rest be blanked,” said Hal, with his beardless lips; and Mercedes said, “Oh!” in pain and sorrow at the oath.
(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)
The printed side had been blackened with wood ash, which already began to come off and soil my fingers; on the blank side had been written with the same material the one word “Depposed.”
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
Only half an hour before her friend called for her at Mrs. Goddard's, her evil stars had led her to the very spot where, at that moment, a trunk, directed to The Rev. Philip Elton, White-Hart, Bath, was to be seen under the operation of being lifted into the butcher's cart, which was to convey it to where the coaches past; and every thing in this world, excepting that trunk and the direction, was consequently a blank.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
Little Raphael, as her sisters called her, had a decided talent for drawing, and was never so happy as when copying flowers, designing fairies, or illustrating stories with queer specimens of art. Her teachers complained that instead of doing her sums she covered her slate with animals, the blank pages of her atlas were used to copy maps on, and caricatures of the most ludicrous description came fluttering out of all her books at unlucky moments.
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
But these objections had all, with that happy ardour of youth which Marianne and her mother equally shared, been overcome or overlooked; and Elinor, in spite of every occasional doubt of Willoughby's constancy, could not witness the rapture of delightful expectation which filled the whole soul and beamed in the eyes of Marianne, without feeling how blank was her own prospect, how cheerless her own state of mind in the comparison, and how gladly she would engage in the solicitude of Marianne's situation to have the same animating object in view, the same possibility of hope.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
We were left to ourselves now, and looked very blank, I recollect, on one another.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
He stood there and received the blanks for a million years or so, never letting one go by for fear it might be filled out.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
