blended

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of blend.

   The chef blended the spices into a fine paste before cooking.

   Their voices blended into a single warm harmony.

   Note

   One regular -ed spelling does double duty, serving as the simple past and as the participle after have or be. Only the transitive verb can go passive (the spices were blended). The intransitive verb takes have instead (their voices had blended), often followed by into. Older writing holds a trap: in an obsolete sense, blended meant stained or corrupted rather than simply mixed.

2. 2
   adjective

   Consisting of two or more different things combined into a single mixture.

   The shop sells a blended whiskey drawn from several casks.

   A blended fabric of cotton and polyester resists wrinkles well.

   Similarmixed, combined

   Oppositepure

   Note

   A participial adjective that has settled into a fixed label: blended tea, blended whiskey, a blended fabric. It does not grade. A tea is blended or it is not, so "more blended" or "very blended" sounds wrong. When the act of mixing is the point, usually with from or by, the phrase reads as the past participle of blend instead: tea blended from three gardens.

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