Hatch

Part of speech: verb

Pronunciation: /hæt͡ʃ/

Definitions

1. A small opening or door, typically in a floor, ceiling, or wall, or the act of emerging from an egg
2. A movable cover on a structure or surface serves as an entry point, while also referring to the process in which an organism breaks free from its egg
3. An access point that can be opened or closed, often found in ceilings or floors, and the moment when a creature is born from its egg

Etymology: The word "hatch" has four separate origins that happen to share a sound, which is why a gate, a chicken's emergence and a chopping motion all answer to the same spelling. The oldest strand is the cover sense. Old English "hæċ" meant a gate or half-door, and it came from a Proto-West Germanic root that also gave Dutch "hek" (gate, railing) and Low German "Heck" (pasture gate). The root may be a variant of the word for "hedge," so a hatch was originally a barrier you could open and close, the same idea that later produced a trapdoor or a ship's deck opening. The egg sense comes from a different verb entirely. Old English had a verb meaning "to peck out," and by Middle English it meant to bring young out of an egg. German "hecken," Danish "hække" and Swedish "häcka" share this root, which also meant "to breed" and "to spawn." The meaning of breaking out of a shell therefore grew from the idea of producing offspring, not from any notion of an opening. A fourth, unrelated word lies behind the sense of cutting fine lines. Middle French "hacher," meaning "to chop," came from a Frankish word that is also the source of English "hack." Engravers' hatching, the closely spaced parallel lines used in drawing, belongs to this branch, so the three common meanings of the word come from three different roots.

Synonyms: emerge, break, open, release, produce

Antonyms: conceal, hide, suppress, cover, trap