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fatten

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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Etymology

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    From fat + -en.

    Pronunciation

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    Verb

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    fatten (third-person singular simple present fattens, present participle fattening, simple past and past participle fattened)

    1. (transitive) To cause (a person or animal) to be fat or fatter.
      We must fatten the turkey in time for Thanksgiving.
      • 1582, Stephen Batman, transl., Batman vppon Bartholome his Booke De Proprietatibus Rerum‎[1], London: Thomas East, Book 6, Chapter 25, p. 82:
        And if the mat[t]er be too little, the vertue of digestion fayleth, and the bodye is dryed, and if the matter and meate be moderate, the meats is well digested, and the bodye fattened, the heart comforted, kinde heate made more, the humors made temperate, & wit made cleere:
      • 1969, Margaret Atwood, The Edible Woman‎[2], Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, published 2010, Part 1, Chapter 4:
        In that classroom full of oily potato-chip-fattened adolescents, she was everyone’s ideal of translucent perfume-advertisement femininity.
    2. (intransitive, of a person or animal) To become fat or fatter.
      Synonyms: gain weight, put on weight
      He gradually fattened in the five years after getting married.
    3. (transitive) To make thick or thicker (often something containing paper, especially money).
    4. (intransitive) To become thick or thicker.
      • 1929, Thomas Wolfe, Look Homeward, Angel‎[7], London: Heinemann, published 1930, Part 2, Chapter 22:
        A broad river of white paper rushed constantly up from the cylinder and leaped into a mangling chaos of machinery whence it emerged a second later, cut, printed, folded and stacked, sliding along a board with a hundred others in a fattening sheaf.
      • 1991, Stephen King, Needful Things:
        The pencil-line of light by his feet fattened to a bar. Alan looked around and saw Norris Ridgewick.
    5. (transitive) To make (soil) fertile and fruitful.
      Synonym: enrich
      to fatten land
      • 1612, Joseph Hall, Contemplations vpon the Principall Passages of the Holie Storie, London: Sa. Macham, Volume 1, Book 4, p. 333,[8]
        As the riuer of Nilus was to Egypt in steed of heauen to moisten and fatten the earth; so their confidence was more in it then in heauen;
      • 1850, Christina Rossetti, “A Testimony”, in Goblin Market and Other Poems‎[9], London: Macmillan, published 1862, page 163:
        The earth is fattened with our dead;
        She swallows more and doth not cease:
        Therefore her wine and oil increase
        And her sheaves are not numberèd;
    6. (intransitive) To become fertile and fruitful.
      • 1700, “The First Book of Homer’s Ilias”, in John Dryden, transl., Fables Ancient and Modern‎[10], London: Jacob Tonson, page 205:
        These hostile Fields shall fatten with thy Blood.

    Derived terms

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    Translations

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    Dutch

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    Pronunciation

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    Noun

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    fatten

    1. plural of fat

    Middle English

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    Etymology

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    From Old English fǣttian, from Proto-West Germanic *faitidēn (“to become fat”); equivalent to fat +‎ en.

    Verb

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    fatten

    1. to grow fat or obese
    2. to make fat, fatten
    3. to lard
    4. to anoint
    5. to make fertile (land)
    6. to flourish, nourish
    7. to grow callous or dull

    Conjugation

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    Conjugation of fatten (weak in -ede)
    infinitive (to) fatten, fatte
    present tense past tense
    1st-person singular fatte fatted(e)
    2nd-person singular fattest fattedest
    3rd-person singular fatteth fatted(e)
    subjunctive singular fatte
    imperative singular —
    plural1 fatten, fatte fatteden, fatted(e)
    imperative plural fatteth, fatte —
    participles fattynge, fattende fatted, yfatted

    1 Sometimes used as a formal 2nd-person singular.

    Descendants

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    • English: fat

    References

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