English Explanatory Dictionary

hatch

English dictionary entry

Meanings

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.
  4. A small door in large mechanical structures and vehicles such as aircraft and spacecraft often provided for access for maintenance.
  5. An opening through the deck of a ship or submarine
  6. A gullet.
  7. A frame or weir in a river, for catching fish.
  8. A floodgate; a sluice gate.
  9. A bedstead.
  10. An opening into, or in search of, a mine.
verb
  1. To close with a hatch or hatches.
verb
  1. To emerge from an egg.
  2. To break open when a young animal emerges from it.
  3. To incubate eggs; to cause to hatch.
  4. To devise (a plot or scheme).
noun
  1. The act of hatching.
  2. Development; disclosure; discovery.
  3. A group of birds that emerged from eggs at a specified time.
  4. The phenomenon, lasting 1–2 days, of large clouds of mayflies appearing in one location to mate, having reached maturity.
  5. A birth, the birth records (in the newspaper).
verb
  1. To shade an area of (a drawing, diagram, etc.) with fine parallel lines, or with lines which cross each other (crosshatch).
  2. To cross; to spot; to stain; to steep.
name
  1. A surname.

Pronunciation

hăch /hæt͡ʃ/ En-au-hatch.ogg

Word forms

hatch hatches hatching hatched

Etymology

From Middle English hacche, hache, from Old English hæċ, from Proto-West Germanic *hakkju (compare Dutch hek ‘gate, railing’, Low German Heck ‘pasture gate, farmyard gate’), variant of *haggju ‘hedge’. More at hedge.

Synonyms

hatch up

Related words

Chingford Hatch Colney Hatch Hatch End Ivy Hatch Hatch Beauchamp

Derived words

after-hatch baby hatch batten down the hatches booby-hatch booby hatch buttery hatch down the hatch escape hatch hatchback hatchboat hatchless hatchlike hatchman hatchway hatchwise hatchwork hot hatch serving hatch The Hatch warm hatch hatchability hatchable hatcher hatchery hatchling hatch out hatch up nonhatched posthatch prehatch prehatched unhatched nuthatch
This entry uses open data from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA/GFDL). Word forms are used for search and are not indexed as separate pages.
Back to search All on H Russian dictionary Dahl dictionary