Hatch

Pronunciation

• enPR: hăch, IPA: /hætʃ/
• Rhymes: -ætʃ

Middle English hache, from Old English hæc, from Proto-Germanic *hakjō (compare Dutch hek ‘gate, railing’, Low German Hek ‘fence’, German Hecke), variant of *hagjō ‘hedge’. More at hedge.

Full definition of hatch

Noun

1. A horizontal door in a floor or ceiling.
2. A trapdoor.
3. An opening in a wall at window height for the purpose of serving food or other items. A pass through.The cook passed the dishes through the serving hatch.
4. A small door in large mechanical structures and vehicles such as aircraft and spacecraft often provided for access for maintenance.
5. A opening through the deck of a ship or submarine.
6. (slang) A gullet.
7. A frame or weir in a river, for catching fish.
8. A floodgate; a sluice gate.
9. (Scotland) A bedstead.
10. (mining) An opening into, or in search of, a mine.

Derived terms

• down the hatch
• hatchwise

Verb

1. (transitive) To close with a hatch or hatches.
• Shakespeare'Twere not amiss to keep our door hatched.

From Middle English hacchen ‘to propagate’, cognate with German hecken ‘to breed, spawn’, Danish hække ("to hatch"); akin to Latvian kakale ‘penis’.

Wolfgang Pfeifer, ed., Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, s.v. “hecken” (Munich: Deutscher Taschenbucher Vertrag, 2005).

Verb

1. (intransitive) (of young animals) To emerge from an egg.
2. (intransitive) (of eggs) To break open when a young animal emerges from it.
3. (transitive) To incubate eggs; to cause to hatch.
4. (transitive) To devise.to hatch a plan or a plot; to hatch mischief or heresy

Derived terms

• hatchling

Noun

noun

1. The act of hatching.
2. Development; disclosure; discovery.
3. (poultry) A group of birds that emerged from eggs at a specified time.These pullets are from an April hatch.
4. (often as mayfly hatch) The phenomenon, lasting 1-2 days, of large clouds of mayflies appearing in one location to mate, having reached maturity.
• a. 1947 Edward R. Hewitt, quoted in 1947, Charles K. Fox, Redistribution of the Green Drake, 1997, Norm Shires, Jim Gilford (editors), Limestone Legends, page 104,The Willowemoc above Livington Manor had the largest mayfly hatch I ever knew about fifty years ago.
• 2004, Ed Engle, Fishing Small Flies, page 118,The major application of the parachute is for mayfly hatches, but it's also useful for midge hatches.
• 2007, John Shewey, On the Fly Guide to the Northwest, page 70,Many years the mayfly hatch begins by the time the lake opens in April. Otherwise, expect strong hatches by mid-May. The hatches continue through midsummer.
5. (informal) A birth, the birth records (in the newspaper) — compare the phrase "hatched, matched, and dispatched."

From Middle French hacher ("to chop, slice up, incise with fine lines"); Old French hachier ("")

Verb

1. (transitive) To shade an area of (a drawing, diagram, etc.) with fine parallel lines, or with lines which cross each other (cross-hatch).
• DrydenThose hatching strokes of the pencil.
• ChapmanShall win this sword, silvered and hatched.
2. (transitive, obsolete) To cross; to spot; to stain; to steep.
• Beaumont and FletcherHis weapon hatched in blood.