hatch Definition

hatch¹
noun hatches

1. A door covering an opening in a ship's deck.
2. A hatchway.
3. A door in an aircraft or spacecraft.
4. An opening in a wall between a kitchen and dining-room, used especially for serving food.

Form: serving hatch (also)
5. The lower half of a divided door.
6. A flood-gate or sluice.

Idiom: down the hatch

colloq
Said as a toast: drink up!

Idiom: under hatches

Below decks.

Out of sight.

Dead.

Etymology: Anglo-Saxon hæc.

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hatch²
verb hatches, hatched, hatching

intr
1. Said of an animal or bird: to break out of an egg.

Form: hatch out (also)
intr
2. Said of an egg: to break open, allowing young animals or birds to be born.
3. To produce (young animals or birds) from eggs.
4. To plan or devise (a plot, scheme, etc), especially in secret.

Thesaurus: incubate, conceive, concoct, contrive, design, develop, devise, originate, plan, plot, scheme.
Form: hatch something up (often)

noun hatches

1. The act or process of hatching.
2. A brood of newly hatched animals.

Idiom: count one's chickens before they are hatched

Note: usually with negatives
To rely too much on some uncertain future event.

Etymology: 13c.

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hatch³
verb

hatches, hatched, hatching
1. Said of the surface of a map, drawing, engraving, etc: to shade with close parallel or crossed lines.

Derivative: hatching
noun

Etymology: 15c: from French hacher to chop, from hache hatchet.