blanked

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of blank.

   The home team blanked their rivals three to nothing on Saturday.

   He blanked completely during the exam and could not recall a single answer.

   Note

   One spelling serves a verb that points two ways. With an object, a team is blanked when it is held scoreless, and in slang a person is blanked when deliberately ignored. These uses passivize naturally: we were blanked 3–0. Without an object, it describes the mind going empty, usually followed by on: I blanked on her name. Only the object-taking uses can follow was or were.

   We were blanked 3–0 in the final.

   I blanked on her name the moment she walked in.

2. 2
   adjective

   Empty of thought, feeling, or expression; showing or holding nothing at all.

   Years of poker had taught him to keep his features blanked while the cards were turned over.

   The nurse searched the patient's blanked eyes for any sign that he could hear her.

   Similarexpressionless, vacant, empty, impassive

   Note

   A participle that has hardened into an adjective. Where blank simply describes an empty surface, blanked suggests that the emptiness came about: a blanked face has gone blank, or been made so, and it often hints at feeling held back. It grows from the "become blank" use of the verb forms. It sits most naturally before face, look, eyes and expression.

3. 3
   adjectivedatedeuphemistic

   A euphemism for damned or accursed, used in place of the actual curse to soften an oath.

   Similardarned, blasted, confounded

   Note

   The printer's dash turned into a spoken word. Where an oath was set in type as d—d, a reader could say "blanked" and keep the curse while dodging it. It stands before a noun, as in a blanked nuisance, and has no comparative. Today it sounds dated, so it belongs in period dialogue or deliberately prim narration rather than in ordinary swearing.

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