Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun An opening, as in the deck of a ship, in the roof or floor of a building, or in an aircraft.
  • noun The cover for such an opening.
  • noun A hatchway.
  • noun Nautical A ship's compartment.
  • noun A door that opens upward on the rear of an automobile; a hatchback.
  • noun A floodgate.
  • idiom (down the hatch) Drink up. Often used as a toast.
  • intransitive verb To emerge from or break out of an egg.
  • intransitive verb To produce (young) from an egg.
  • intransitive verb To cause (an egg or eggs) to produce young.
  • intransitive verb To devise or originate, especially in secret.
  • noun The act or an instance of hatching.
  • noun The young hatched at one time; a brood.
  • transitive verb To shade by drawing or etching fine parallel or crossed lines on.
  • noun A fine line used in hatching.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To close with or as with a hatch.
  • To chase; engrave; mark with cuts or lines.
  • Specifically, in drawing, engraving, etc., to shade by means of lines; especially, to shade with lines crossing one another. See hatching and cross-hatching.
  • To lay in small and numerous bands upon a ground of different material: as, laces of silver hatched on a satin ground.
  • To cause to develop in and emerge from (an egg) by incubation or other natural process, or by artificial heat; cause the developed young to emerge from (an egg).
  • To contrive or plot, especially secretly; form by meditation, and bring into being; originate and produce: as, to hatch mischief; to hatch heresy.
  • To be hatched, as the eggs of birds, reptiles, fishes, insects, etc.: as, the eggs hatch in two weeks, in the water, under ground, etc.
  • To come forth from or out of the egg: as, the chicks hatch naked in ten days.
  • noun A brood; as many young birds as are produced at one time, or by one incubation.
  • noun The number of eggs incubated at one time; a clutch.
  • noun The act of hatching; also, that which is hatched, in either sense of that word.
  • noun A shading line in drawing or engraving.
  • noun A half-door, or a door with an opening over it; a grated or latticed door or gate; a wicket.
  • noun A grate or frame of cross-bars laid over an opening in a ship's deck; hence, any cover of an opening in a ship's deck.
  • noun An opening, generally rectangular, in a ship's deck, for taking in or discharging the cargo, or for affording a passage into the interior of the ship; a hatchway.
  • noun Hence Any similar opening, as in the floor of a building, or a cover placed over it.
  • noun An opening made in a mine, or made in searching for a mine.
  • noun A rack for hay.
  • noun A frame or weir in a river, for catching fish.
  • noun A bedstead.
  • noun A hollow trap to catch weasels and other animals.
  • noun Under close confinement; in servitude.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To close with a hatch or hatches.
  • noun The act of hatching.
  • noun Development; disclosure; discovery.
  • noun The chickens produced at once or by one incubation; a brood.
  • transitive verb To cross with lines in a peculiar manner in drawing and engraving. See hatching.
  • transitive verb obsolete To cross; to spot; to stain; to steep.
  • intransitive verb To produce young; -- said of eggs; to come forth from the egg; -- said of the young of birds, fishes, insects, etc.
  • transitive verb To produce, as young, from an egg or eggs by incubation, or by artificial heat; to produce young from (eggs).
  • transitive verb To contrive or plot; to form by meditation, and bring into being; to originate and produce; to concoct
  • noun A door with an opening over it; a half door, sometimes set with spikes on the upper edge.
  • noun A frame or weir in a river, for catching fish.
  • noun A flood gate; a sluice gate.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, small door, from Old English hæc, hæcc.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English hacchen, from Old English *hæccan.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English hachen, to engrave, carve, from Old French hacher, hachier, to crosshatch, cut up; see hash.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

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.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

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

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

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

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Examples

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  • best chile is breed here.

    salsalicious

    September 19, 2007