bleaching

The process of removing stains or of whitening fabrics, especially by the use of chemical agents.

Noun

  1. The process of removing stains or of whitening fabrics, especially by the use of chemical agents.
  2. The loss or removal of part of the (semantic, grammatical, etc) content or a word or morpheme.
    • Grammaticalization is often associated with 'semantic bleaching', and this 'bleaching' is the result of reanalysis […] But there is no evidence that the bleaching of the meaning of do played any role in the causation of...
    • In the development of the prepositional phrase, which did not exist in PIE, one can see a grammaticalization based on a double bleaching. […] Many of these combinations are achieved by lexical bleaching of the...

    Coordinate Terms: desemanticization

Forms

bleachings

Derived

biobleaching bleaching agent bleaching powder coral bleaching nonbleaching postbleaching prebleaching semantic bleaching unbleaching

Verb

  1. present participle and gerund of bleach