Hatchman

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A man who hatches eggs, typically in an agricultural or poultry setting
2. Someone who manages or cares for the incubation and hatching of bird eggs on a farm
3. An individual responsible for overseeing the hatching of eggs, often in a farming environment

Etymology: A hatchman is, quite literally, a man who looks after hatches, and the word is a plain compound: "hatch" plus "-man." Here "hatch" is the brood of eggs in the sense of a clutch that is hatched, and the "-man" element marks a person whose job is tending them. The word is most at home in poultry and fish-farming contexts, where eggs are kept warm and watched until the young emerge. The interest lies in the second element. English has many occupational compounds built this way, such as "fireman" or "gatekeeper's man" style formations, and "-man" was a productive suffix for naming a worker by the thing he attends to. The word therefore sits in a family of plain, transparent job titles rather than a story of invention or drift.