ferment (ferments, present participle fermenting; past and past participle fermented)
- To react, using fermentation; especially to produce alcohol by aging or by allowing yeast to act on sugars; to brew.
- To stir up, agitate, cause unrest or excitement in.
- 1713, Alexander Pope, Windsor Forest:
- Ye vigorous swains! while youth ferments your blood.
- 1726, James Thomson, “Winter”, in The Seasons, London: Printed for A[ndrew] Millar, and sold by Thomas Cadell, […], published 1768, OCLC 642619686 ↗, lines 10–14, page 165 ↗:
- Pleas'd have I wander'd thro' your rough domain; / Trod the pure virgin-ſnows, myſelf as pure; / Heard the winds roar, and the big torrent burſt; / Or ſeen the deep fermenting tempeſt brew'd, / In the grim evening ſky.
ferment (plural ferments)
- Something, such as a yeast or barm, that causes fermentation.
- A state of agitation or of turbulent change.
- Subdue and cool the ferment of desire.
- The nation is in a ferment.
- 1919, Ronald Firbank, Valmouth, Duckworth, hardback edition, page 104
- Clad in a Persian-Renaissance gown and a widow's tiara of white batiste, Mrs Thoroughfare, in all the ferment of a Marriage-Christening, left her chamber on vapoury autumn day and descending a few stairs, and climbing a few others, knocked a trifle brusquely at her son's wife's door.
- A gentle internal motion of the constituent parts of a fluid; fermentation.
- Down to the lowest lees the ferment ran.
- A catalyst.
- German: Gärmittel
- Portuguese: fermento
- Russian: ферме́нт
- Russian: возбужде́ние