blanc

Borrowed from French blanc (“white”). Doublet of blank.

blanc (countable and uncountable, plural blancs)

1. (offensive, ethnic slur) A white person; a person of European or Caucasian descent.
2. A white sauce of fat, broth, and vegetables, used especially for braised meat.
3. A white cosmetic.
   • 2013, M. C. Beaton, Rake's Progress:

     Had Miss Fipps not told her what they were, she would have taken them for ladies of fashion. In an age when women wore less than they had ever done but wore just as much blanc and rouge, there was little difference between the ladies in the side boxes and the ladies in the centre.

   • 2015, Richard Corson, James Glavan, Beverly Gore Norcross, Stage Makeup, page 322:

     A guest at a party in 1764 was described as wearing on her face "rather too much yellow mixed with the red; she . . . would look very agreeable if she added blanc to the rouge instead of gamboge."

   • 2020, Amelia Rauser, The Age of Undress, page 127:

     A white mask of cosmetic face paint, or blanc, had long been the norm for formally dressed ladies in the eighteenth century, but by the 1790s the deliberate artifice of the white mask was supplanted by a desire for a "natural" whiteness without additional coloring. "Rouge is no longer used; pallor is more interesting," wrote one commentator in 1804; "The ladies only use the blanc, and leave the rouge to the men."

Inherited from Early Medieval Latin blancus, from Proto-Germanic *blankaz.

• IPA^(key): (Central) [ˈblaŋ]
• IPA^(key): (Balearic, Valencia) [ˈblaŋk]

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blanc (feminine blanca, masculine plural blancs, feminine plural blanques)

1. white

blanc m (plural blancs)

1. white
2. target (for shooting practice)
3. blank (empty space)

Colors in Catalan · colors (layout · text)

blanc	gris	negre
roig, vermell; carmesí	taronja; marró	groc; crema
verd llima	verd
cian; xarxet	atzur	blau
violat; indi	magenta; lila, porpra	rosa

• “blanc”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8.1, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 15 December 2025
• Alcover, Antoni Maria; Moll, Francesc de Borja (1963), “blanc”, in Diccionari català-valencià-balear (in Catalan)

• blank

From Early Medieval Latin blancus, perhaps via Old Venetan blanco. Compare also Italian bianco.

blanc m (plural blance, feminine blanca)

1. white

   Synonym: iualb

Colors in Dalmatian · colauri (layout · text)

iualb; blanc	canaisa	fosc; niar
ros; crimisain	orangia; broin	zuola; iaur; crema
vert lima	vert	vert menta; vert menta scior; vert scior
cian; azul pitroleo	azul; zelést; zelést scior	blu; blu scior
viola; indaic	cris; purpura	ruosa

• Bartoli, Matteo (1906), Il Dalmatico: Resti di un’antica lingua romanza parlata da Veglia a Ragusa e sua collocazione nella Romània appenino-balcanica, Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, published 2000

• bllanc (ORB, narrow)

Inherited from Early Medieval Latin blancus.

blanc (feminine blanche, masculine plural blancs, feminine plural blanches) (ORB, broad)

1. white

• blanc in DicoFranPro: Dictionnaire Français/Francoprovençal – on dicofranpro.llm.umontreal.ca
• bl(l)anc in Lo trèsor Arpitan – on arpitan.eu

Inherited from Middle French blanc, from Old French blanc, branc, from Early Medieval Latin blancus, a borrowing of Frankish *blank, from Proto-Germanic *blankaz (“bright, shining, blinding, white”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰleyǵ- (“to shine”).

Akin to Old High German blanch (“bright, white”) (German blank (“polished, naked”)), Old Norse blankr (“white”) (Danish blank (“bright, shiny”)), Dutch blank (“white, shining”). More at blink, blank.

• (France) IPA^(key): /blɑ̃/
• (Quebec) IPA^(key): /blã/

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blanc (feminine blanche, masculine plural blancs, feminine plural blanches)

1. white color

   Ce lait est blanc. ― This milk is white.

2. blank, unused
3. (figurative, one's look) blank, without expression

blanc m (plural blancs)

1. white (color)
2. silence while in a dialog
3. empty space, on a leaf of paper or in a form

   Inscrivez votre nom dans le blanc en bas de la page.

   Write your name in the blank at the bottom of the page.

4. (informal) white wine

   Le poisson se mange avec du blanc.

   fish is eaten with white wine.

5. A white person, person with a white complexion
   • 2015, Ilham Maad, Noir, pas black‎^[1], archived from the original on 30 January 2021:

     C’est qu’en France, les blancs n’existent pas et par contre la façon de parler des nonblancs existe et évolue avec le temps. Parce qu’effectivement, d’abord on était sur des termes purement et simplement racistes avec « bamboula, negro, nègre, bicot, bougnoule » et puis après ça a évolué et on est arrivé à « black, beur »… Donc je sais pas quand est-ce que ça a commencé exactement, moi je marque ça aux années 80, le hip hop, voilà, la black music…

     In France, there are no Whites, but names for non-Whites are constantly evolving. First we had terms that were purely and simply racist, like jigaboo, negro, nigger, coon, sambo... That evolved until we got to Black, Brownie... I'm not sure when that came in, but I guess it was the 1980s, with hip-hop and "Black music."

7. albumen, egg white

   Synonyms: albumen, blanc d'œuf, glaire (archaic)

8. white meat
9. correction fluid, whiteout, Tippex

• (correction fluid) blanco, correcteur liquide, tipex

• blanc de blancs
• blanc de noirs

• Antillean Creole: blan
• Guianese Creole: blan
• Haitian Creole: blan
• Karipúna Creole French: blã
• Louisiana Creole: blan, blon
• Seychellois Creole: blan
• Tayo: bla
• → Romanian: blanc

Colors in French · couleurs (layout · text)

blanc	gris	noir
rouge; cramoisi, carmin	orange; brun, marron	jaune; crème
lime	vert	menthe
cyan, turquoise; bleu canard	azur, bleu ciel	bleu
violet, lilas; indigo	magenta; pourpre	rose

• “blanc”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012

Inherited from Early Medieval Latin blancus.

blanc

1. white

• IPA^(key): /blaŋk/

blanc (comparative plus blanc, superlative le plus blanc)

1. white (having a light colour, reflecting all light)
2. white (having a light skin colour, mostly associated with European descent)

• blanchir

• blanco

Colors in Interlingua · colores (layout · text)

blanc, albe	gris	nigre
rubie	orange; brun	jalne; crema
verde lima	verde	verde mentha, acquamarine
cyano	azure	blau
violette; indigo	magenta; purpure	rosate

From Old French blanc.

blanc m (uncountable)

1. white

blanc m (feminine singular blanche, masculine plural blancs, feminine plural blanches)

1. white

• French: blanc (see there for further descendants)

• blan (Mistralian)

From Old Occitan blanc, from Early Medieval Latin blancus (compare Catalan and French blanc, Spanish blanco, Portuguese branco, Italian bianco), from Proto-Germanic *blankaz (“bright, shining, blinding, white”), from Proto-Indo-European *bhleg- (“to shine”).

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blanc m (feminine singular blanca, masculine plural blancs, feminine plural blancas)

1. white

• blonc, blaunc

From Proto-Germanic *blankaz (“bright", "shining", "blinding", "white”), from Proto-Indo-European *bhleg- (“to shine”). Akin to Old High German blanch, planch (“bright", "white”), hence German blank (“blank", "white”), Old Norse blankr (“white”), hence Danish blank (“shiny”), Swedish blank (“shiny”), Dutch blank (“white", "shining”).

• IPA^(key): /blɑnk/, [blɑŋk]

blanc

1. white
2. greyish-white, pale, pallid

• blonca, blanca
• blencan

• Middle English: blanke, blonke
  • Scots: blonk

From Early Medieval Latin blancus, from Frankish *blank, from Proto-Germanic *blankaz (“bright, shining, blinding, white”), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰleyǵ- (“to shine”).

Akin to Old High German blanch "bright, white" (German blank (“blank, white”)), Old Norse blankr (“white”) (Danish blank (“bright, shiny”)), Dutch blank (“white, shining”). More at blink, blind.

• IPA^(key): /blank/

blanc m (oblique and nominative feminine singular blanche)

1. white

blanc oblique singular, m (oblique plural blans, nominative singular blans, nominative plural blanc)

1. white (color)
   • c. 1170, Chrétien de Troyes, Érec et Énide:

     Ses haubers est coverz de sanc:
     De roge i a plus que de blanc.

     His chainmail is covered in blood
     There's more red than white (referring to his white chainmail)

• blanchoier

• Bourguignon: blian
• Champenois: bian
• Gallo: blânc
• Lorrain: bianc
• Middle English: blonc, blank, blaunc, blaunche
  • English: blank
    • → German: Plenk
• Middle French: blanc (see there for further descendants)
• Norman: bllànc, blianc (Jersey), bllaunc (continental)
• Picard: blanc
• Walloon: blan, blanc

From Early Medieval Latin blancus, from Frankish *blank, from Proto-Germanic *blankaz (“bright, shining, blinding, white”), from Proto-Indo-European *bhleg- (“to shine”).

blanc m (feminine singular blancha, masculine plural blancs, feminine plural blanchas)

1. white

• Occitan: blanc

Borrowed from French blanc.

blanc n (plural blancuri)

1. white space

• blanc in Academia Română, Micul dicționar academic, ediția a II-a, Bucharest: Univers Enciclopedic, 2010. →ISBN

From Old French blanc, from Early Medieval Latin blancus, from Frankish *blank, from Proto-Germanic *blankaz (“bright, shining, blinding, white”), from Proto-Indo-European *bhleg- (“to shine”).

• IPA^(key): /blã/

blanc m (feminine singular blanke, masculine plural blancs, feminine plural blankes, feminine plural (before noun) blankès)

1. white

blanc m

1. white

• IPA^(key): /blaŋk/
• Rhymes: -aŋk

Borrowed from Middle English blank, blanke.

• planc

blanc m (plural blainc)

1. colt, foal

   Synonym: ebol

Borrowed from English blank.

blanc m (plural blanciau)

1. blank, empty space

   Synonyms: bwlch, adwy, gwagle, gweilydd

2. (military) blank, empty cartridge

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

blanc

1. soft mutation of planc (“bakestone, plank”)

• D. G. Lewis, N. Lewis, editors (2005–present), “blanc”, in Gweiadur: the Welsh–English Dictionary, Gwerin
• R. J. Thomas, G. A. Bevan, P. J. Donovan, A. Hawke, et al., editors (1950–present), “blanc”, in Geiriadur Prifysgol Cymru Online (in Welsh), University of Wales Centre for Advanced Welsh & Celtic Studies