Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Hatch

Hatch (hach) , transitive verb

[French hacher to chop, hack. See Hash.]

1.
To cross with lines in a peculiar manner in drawing and engraving. See Hatching.
Shall win this sword, silvered and hatched. — Chapman
Those hatching strokes of the pencil. — Dryden
2.
To cross; to spot; to stain; to steep. [Obsolete]
His weapon hatched in blood. — Beau. & Fl

Hatch , transitive verb

[Old English hacchen, hetchen; akin to German hecken, Danish hekke; compare Middle High German hagen bull; perh. akin to English hatch a half door, and originally meaning, to produce under a hatch. r12.]

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. — Paley
As the partridge sitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not. — Jer. xvii. 11
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. — Robynson (More's Utopia)
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. — Hooker
Fancies hatched In silken-folded idleness. — Tennyson

Hatch , intransitive verb

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

Hatch , noun

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

Hatch , noun

[Old English hacche, Anglo-Saxon hac, compare haca the bar of a door, Dutch hek gate, Swedish hack coop, rack, Danish hekke manger, rack. Probably akin to English hook, and first used of something made of pieces fastened together. Compare Heck, Hack a frame.]

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. — Shakespeare
2.
A frame or weir in a river, for catching fish.
3.
A flood gate; a sluice gate. — Ainsworth
4.
A bedstead. [Scottish] — Sir W. Scott
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.
(Mining) An opening into, or in search of, a mine.
Collocations (3)
Booby hatch or Buttery hatch or Companion hatch , See under Booby, Buttery, etc.
To batten down the hatches (Nautical) , to lay tarpaulins over them, and secure them with battens.
To be under hatches , to be confined below in a vessel; to be under arrest, or in slavery, distress, etc.

Hatch , transitive verb

To close with a hatch or hatches.
'T were not amiss to keep our door hatched. — Shakespeare