hatch

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The Astra hatch is approaching the end of its product cycle, but in the lead up to the arrival of an all-new model later this year Opel has seen fit to release one more special edition based on the sporty Coupe.

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Definitions (55)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (15)

  1. noun An opening, as in the deck of a ship, in the roof or floor of a building, or in an aircraft.
  2. noun The cover for such an opening.
  3. noun A hatchway.
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Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (26)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (6)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (8)

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Examples (50)

  • I knew when I opened the hatch that an alarm beeper would sound in the cockpit, but I also knew from past flights that the hatch was often jarred open slightly by the impact of landing and that the pilot, since he was already on the ground, usually just shut off the beeper as the hatch being ajar posed no hazard. —  CATCH ME IF YOU CAN - FRANK ABAGNALE JR.
  • John Harrington had been watching the slaves stumble into the sunlight, but now he turned toward the bow and eyed the seven prisoners lounging in front of the forward deckhouse The next African out of the hatch was a scrawny boy who looked as if he might be somewhere around seven or eight, in Emory's unpracticed judgment. —  Asimov'sSF,August2007
  • His mouth closed when it did fire, the canister catching a turtle boat just as the hatch was raised for a volley of bolts, cracking on the edge and sending its load of burning jellied gasoline shooting through the entrance with hideous perfection. —  Map.html
  • With Quattro all-wheel drive, the hatch is a more playful companion on back roads than the front-drive version, which understeers resolutely when you're driving hard. —  Automotive News Blog at CARandDRIVER.com - Car News Resource
  • This week we're expecting another batch of chicks to hatch, which is always exciting for the kids to watch and then take care of baby chicks. —  Reader - MassLive.com
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

bulkhead ·  compartment ·  airlock ·  hull ·  panel ·  doorway ·  ladder ·  hatchway ·  deck ·  ramp ·  lock ·  staircase

Used in the same contextWord Family

hatch:   hatching ·  hatched
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (9)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. Middle English, small door, from Old English hæc, hæcc.
  2. Middle English hacchen, from Old English *hæccan.
  3. Middle English hachen, to engrave, carve, from Old French hacher, hachier, to crosshatch, cut up; see hash1.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (6)

  1. = English dial. and Scots unassibilated hack, heck, a half-door, wicket, also a rack or frame (for various purposes: see hack, heck), from Middle English hatche, hacche, hetche, hecche, also unassibilated heke (*hekke), hek, hec, a half-door, wicket, gate, in plural hacches, hatches (of a ship), from Anglo-Saxon hæc (hæcc-), feminine (in dative hæcce, hecce, hacce), apparently meaning a gate or wicket (also in comp. hæc-wēr, a weir for catching fish: see def. 7), = Middle Dutch heck, hecke, a bar, a rail, the bar or bolt of a door, a grating, a flood-gate, etc., Dutch hek, a rail, fence, gate, = Middle Low German heck, Low German hek, a lattice, a gate or turnstile (kese-hek, a rack for cheese), = Swedish häck, a rack, =Danish hæk, hække, a rack; properly, it seems, anything made with bars or cross-bars, being closely connected with Anglo-Saxon hæc (hæcc-), feminine (in dative hæcce), hæcce, neuter nominative, a crosier, from haca (only in glosses, where sometimes less properly nominative hæca), a bar, the bar or bolt of a door, prob. orig. a hook, as in modern English dial. hake, a hook: see hake and hake.
  2. from hatch, n.
  3. from Middle English hacchen (preterit haʒte, haihte, past participle ihaht) (not in Anglo-Saxon) = Middle High German G. hecken = Swedish häcka = Danish hække, hatch, produce young from eggs by incubation (German hecken comprehends the laying of the eggs, and even the pairing and nesting; in common language it is not applied to domestic fowls). Cf. hatch, n. The asserted derivation from hatch (“to hatch birds is to produce them under a hatch or coop” — Skeat) is improbable, because the notion is a more general one; the earliest instances (Middle English) refer to the owl and other non-domestic birds, which do not hatch under a coop; moreover, hatch does not mean in English a coop or breeding-cage, and the Swedish Danish G. nouns with this sense are properly derivatives of the verb, though easily confused (in Swedish Danish) with the other noun meaning ‘rack,’ = English hatch. Wedgwood's assertion that hatch is identical with hack (cf. hatch, ult. = hack), because “the young bird is supposed to peck its way out of the shell” (German hacken, hack, also peck or strike with the bill), is negatived by the difference in the Middle English forms (present and preterit). The word is prob. an independent verb, of which early record is lost.
  4. Cf. German hecke (not in Middle High German), a hatching, a hatch, brood, breed, also breeding- or hatching-time, breeding-cage, aviary, = Swedish häck, a coop, = Danish hæk, hatching, breeding (cf. hækkebur, breeding-cage (see bower), hækketid, hatching- or nesting-time); from the verb: see hatch, v.
  5. Early modern English; from Old French hacher, hack, shred, slice, hew, chop, cut in pieces, also hatch (a hilt), French hacher, from Middle High German G. hacken, cut: see hack. Cf. hash.
  6. from hatch, v.
 

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