hatch🔊

A horizontal door in a floor or ceiling.

A trapdoor.

An opening in a wall at window height for the purpose of serving food or other items. A pass through.

A small door in large mechanical structures and vehicles such as aircraft and spacecraft often provided for access for maintenance.

(nautical) An opening through the deck of a ship or submarine

(slang) A gullet.

A frame or weir in a river, for catching fish.

A floodgate; a sluice gate.

(Scotland) A bedstead.

(mining) An opening into, or in search of, a mine.

To close with a hatch or hatches.

(to emerge from an egg) (of young animals) To emerge from an egg.

(of eggs) To break open when a young animal emerges from it.

To incubate eggs; to cause to hatch.

To devise (a plot or scheme). +

The act of hatching.

(figurative) Development; disclosure; discovery.

(poultry) A group of birds that emerged from eggs at a specified time.

The phenomenon, lasting 1–2 days, of large clouds of mayflies appearing in one location to mate, having reached maturity.

(informal) A birth, the birth records (in the newspaper).

To shade an area of (a drawing, diagram, etc.) with fine parallel lines, or with lines which cross each other (crosshatch).

(obsolete) To cross; to spot; to stain; to steep.