Hatch /(hăch)/

imp. & p. p. Hatched; p. pr. & vb. n. Hatching

1. To cross with lines in a peculiar manner in drawing and engraving. See Hatching.

   Shall win this sword, silvered and hatched.

   Those hatching strokes of the pencil.

2. To cross; to spot; to stain; to steep. [Obs.]

   His weapon hatched in blood.

1. To produce, as young, from an egg or eggs by incubation, or by artificial heat; to produce young from (eggs); as, the young when hatched.

   As the partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not.

   For the hens do not sit upon the eggs; but by keeping them in a certain equal heat they [the husbandmen] bring life into them and hatch them.

2. To contrive or plot; to form by meditation, and bring into being; to originate and produce; to concoct; as, to hatch mischief; to hatch heresy.

   Fancies hatched In silken-folded idleness.

1. To produce young; -- said of eggs; to come forth from the egg; -- said of the young of birds, fishes, insects, etc.

1. The act of hatching.
2. Development; disclosure; discovery.
3. The chickens produced at once or by one incubation; a brood.

1. A door with an opening over it; a half door, sometimes set with spikes on the upper edge.

   In at the window, or else o'er the hatch.

2. A frame or weir in a river, for catching fish.
3. A flood gate; a sluice gate.
4. A bedstead. [Scot.]
5. An opening in the deck of a vessel or floor of a warehouse which serves as a passageway or hoistway; a hatchway; also; a cover or door, or one of the covers used in closing such an opening.
6. An opening into, or in search of, a mine. (Mining)

1. To close with a hatch or hatches.

   'T were not amiss to keep our door hatched.