ferment

From Middle French ferment, from Latin fermentare (“to leaven, ferment”), from fermentum (“substance causing fermentation”), from fervere (“to boil, seethe”). See also fervent.

• (verb):
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /fəˈmɛnt/
  • (General American) IPA^(key): /fɚˈmɛnt/
• (noun):
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈfɜːmɛnt/
  • (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈfɝmɛnt/

ferment (third-person singular simple present ferments, present participle fermenting, simple past and past participle fermented)

1. To react, using fermentation; especially to produce alcohol by aging or by allowing yeast to act on sugars; to brew.
2. To stir up, agitate, cause unrest or excitement in.
   • Alexander Pope

     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)

1. Something, such as a yeast or barm, that causes fermentation.
2. A state of agitation or of turbulent change.
   • Rogers

     Subdue and cool the ferment of desire.

   • Walpole

     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.

3. A gentle internal motion of the constituent parts of a fluid; fermentation.
   • Thomson

     Down to the lowest lees the ferment ran.

4. A catalyst.

• foment

• “ferment” in Douglas Harper, Online Etymology Dictionary, 2001–2019.
• ferment in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• Fermentation on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

• fretmen

ferment

1. third-person plural present indicative of fermer
2. third-person plural present subjunctive of fermer