hatch

• enPR: hăch, IPA^(key): /hæt͡ʃ/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: hatch
• Rhymes: -ætʃ

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.

hatch (plural hatches)

1. A horizontal door in a floor or ceiling.

   Moving the wardrobe revealed a previously hidden hatch in the ground.

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.

   • 1950 June, “New Restaurant and Buffet Cars, G.N.R.(I.)”, in Railway Magazine, page 415:

     A service hatch with sliding shutter is situated at the end of the kitchen next to the dining compartment.

4. A small door in large mechanical structures and vehicles such as aircraft and spacecraft often provided for access for maintenance.
   • 1963 February, “Diesel locomotive faults and their remedies”, in Modern Railways, page 100:

     A surprising number of incidents is due to roof hatches being left loose or in the raised position when locomotives return to service after maintenance. On one occasion, a 25kV overhead line was damaged by an open hatch.

5. (nautical) An 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.
   • 1879, Richard Jeffries, Wild Life in a Southern County:

     The farmers lower down the brook pull up the hatches to let the flood pass.

9. (Scotland) A bedstead.
   • 1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC:

     It consisted of a rude wooden stool , and still ruder hatch or bed-frame

10. (mining) An opening into, or in search of, a mine.

hatch (third-person singular simple present hatches, present participle hatching, simple past and past participle hatched)

1. (transitive) To close with a hatch or hatches.
   • c. 1607–1608, William Shakeſpeare, The Late, And much admired Play, Called Pericles, Prince of Tyre. […], London: Imprinted at London for Henry Goſſon,  […], published 1609, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii]:

     'Twere not amiss to keep our door hatched.

From Middle English hacche, hacchen (“to propagate”), from Old English *hæċċan, āhaċċian (“to peck out; hatch”), from Proto-Germanic *hakjaną.

Cognate with German hecken ‘to breed, spawn’, Danish hække (“to hatch”), Swedish häcka (“to breed”); akin to Latvian kakale ‘penis’.^[1]

hatch (third-person singular simple present hatches, present participle hatching, simple past and past participle hatched)

1. (intransitive, of young animals) To emerge from an egg.

   These three chicks hatched yesterday morning.

2. (intransitive, of eggs) To break open when a young animal emerges from it.

   She was delighted when she heard the crackling sound of the eggs hatching.

3. (transitive) To incubate eggs; to cause to hatch.

   I'm hatching this mysterious egg I found in the forest.

4. (transitive) To devise (a plot or scheme).

   World domination was only one of the evil schemes he had hatched over the years.

   • 2017 August 27, Brandon Nowalk, “Game Of Thrones slows down for the longest, and best, episode of the season (newbies)”, in The Onion AV Club‎^[1]:

     As for Cersei, pretending to work with her enemies while secretly hatching some grander scheme was pretty much what I expected for the truce going into it.

• hatcher, hatchling
• hatch out

hatch (plural hatches)

1. The act of hatching.
2. (figurative) Development; disclosure; discovery.
   • c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i], page 266:

     There's ſomething in his ſoule? / O'er which his Melancholly ſits on brood, / And I do doubt the hatch, and the diſcloſe / Will be ſome danger, which to preuent / I haue in quicke determination

3. (poultry) A group of birds that emerged from eggs at a specified time.

   These pullets are from an April hatch.

5. (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^[2], 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^[3], 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.

6. (informal) A birth, the birth records (in the newspaper).

   hatch, match, and dispatch

From Middle French hacher (“to chop, slice up, incise with fine lines”), from Old French hacher, hachier, from Frankish *hakōn, *hakkōn, from Proto-Germanic *hakkōną (“to chop; hack”). More at hack.

hatch (third-person singular simple present hatches, present participle hatching, simple past and past participle hatched)

1. (transitive) To shade an area of (a drawing, diagram, etc.) with fine parallel lines, or with lines which cross each other (cross-hatch).
   • 1695, C[harles] A[lphonse] du Fresnoy, translated by John Dryden, De Arte Graphica. The Art of Painting, […], London: […] J[ohn] Heptinstall for W. Rogers, […], →OCLC:

     Those hatching strokes of the pencil.

   • [1611?], Homer, “(please specify |book=I to XXIV)”, in Geo[rge] Chapman, transl., The Iliads of Homer Prince of Poets. […], London: […] Nathaniell Butter, →OCLC; republished as The Iliads of Homer, Prince of Poets, […], new edition, volume (please specify the book number), London: Charles Knight and Co., […], 1843, →OCLC:

     Shall win this sword, silvered and hatched.

     The spelling has been modernized.

2. (transitive, obsolete) To cross; to spot; to stain; to steep.
   • 1619, John Fletcher, “The Humorous Lieutenant”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1647, →OCLC, Act I, scene i:

     His weapon hatch'd in blood.

• Chingford Hatch
• Colney Hatch
• Hatch End

• Hatch in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

• Thach, tchah