Ripen
['raɪp(ə)n] or ['raɪpən]
Definition
(verb.) grow ripe; 'The plums ripen in July'.
(verb.) cause to ripen or develop fully; 'The sun ripens the fruit'; 'Age matures a good wine'.
Typed by Gwendolyn--From WordNet
Definition
(v. i.) To grow ripe; to become mature, as grain, fruit, flowers, and the like; as, grapes ripen in the sun.
(v. i.) To approach or come to perfection.
(v. t.) To cause to mature; to make ripe; as, the warm days ripened the corn.
(v. t.) To mature; to fit or prepare; to bring to perfection; as, to ripen the judgment.
Editor: Terence
Synonyms and Synonymous
v. n. Grow ripe, be matured.
v. a. Mature, bring to maturity, make ripe.
Checked by Brett
Examples
- The air that would be healthful to the earth, the water that would enrich it, the heat that would ripen it, tear it when caged up. Charles Dickens. Hard Times.
- But there is a kind of passivity, willingness to let experiences accumulate and sink in and ripen, which is an essential of development. John Dewey. Democracy and Education.
- We shall make our bed of dried leaves; the sun will shine on us as on man, and will ripen our food. Mary Shelley. Frankenstein_Or_The Modern Prometheus.
- Things will grow and ripen as if it were a comet year, said Will. George Eliot. Middlemarch.
- Now she was simply ripening into a copy of her mother, and mysteriously, by the very process, trying to turn him into a Mr. Welland. Edith Wharton. The Age of Innocence.
- They are ripening fast. Jane Austen. Emma.
- I see trees laden with ripening fruit. Charlotte Bronte. Jane Eyre.
- Even in the ripening of fruits heat appears to him to h ave a cooking effect. Walter Libby. An Introduction to the History of Science.
- Obstacles were a ripening sun to his love, and he was at this moment in a delirium of exquisite misery. Thomas Hardy. The Return of the Native.
- Sometimes a life glides away, and finds it still ripening in the shade. Charles Dickens. David Copperfield.
- The slow ripening of it still left me a measure of precaution to take, an obligation of gratitude to perform, and a doubtful question to solve. Wilkie Collins. The Woman in White.
- Then she longed to breathe the fresh air, to revisit her flowers, to see how the fruit had ripened. Charlotte Bronte. Shirley.
- Culture means at least something cultivated, something ripened; it is opposed to the raw and crude. John Dewey. Democracy and Education.
Checker: Velma