ferment

present singular third person ferments · participle present fermenting · participle past fermented · past fermented

1. To react, using fermentation; especially to produce alcohol by aging or by allowing yeast to act on sugars; to brew.

   1 more example

   The cleanup job would turn out to be possibly second only to body-recovery duty in terms of being a job that nobody wanted to get assigned to. Imagine, for a moment, a thick soup of oil, paper, ink, clothing, raw meat and other fresh provisions, and worse, that had all been left to collect together in semi-warm water, all enclosed in a large metal container that had then been subjected to heating by first fire and then repeated warm Hawaiian days, and then left to ferment for over a month, and then with most of the water drained away and all the remaining solid and semi-liquid mass collecting together in pools and heaps across multiple decks, still in a relatively-enclosed environment.

   2020 November 18, Drachinifel, 6:21 from the start, in The Salvage of Pearl Harbor Pt 2 - Up She Rises!, archived from the original on 22 Oct 2022

2. To stir up, agitate, cause unrest or excitement in.

   Ye vigorous swains! while youth ferments your blood.

   1713, [Alexander] Pope, Windsor-Forest. […], London: […] Bernard Lintott […], →OCLC

   1 more example

   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.

   a. 1749 (date written), James Thomson, “Winter”, in The Seasons, London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, and sold by Thomas Cadell, […], published 1768, →OCLC, page 165, lines 10–14

plural ferments

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

   14 November, 1770, Junius, letter to the Right Honourable Lord Mansfield The nation is in a ferment.

   3 more examples

   Subdue and cool the ferment of desire.

   a. 1729, John Rogers, The Difficulties of Obtaining Salvation

   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.

   1919, Ronald Firbank, Valmouth, Duckworth, hardback edition, page 104

   Proponents of the broken windows theory assume that [disorder] means a neighborhood has lost control and doesn't care about crime. But surely there are other plausible meanings. It could signal artistic ferment, a youth hangout, rebellion, or an alternative lifestyle.

   2001, Bernard E. Harcourt, chapter 5, in Illusion of Order

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

   A Rage of Pleaſure madden'd every Breaſt, / Down to the loweſt Lees the Ferment ran: [...]

   1748, James Thomson, “Canto II”, in The Castle of Indolence: […], London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, stanza XXX, page 56

4. A catalyst.