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Ferment   /fərmˈɛnt/  /fˈərmɛnt/   Listen
noun
Ferment  n.  
1.
That which causes fermentation, as yeast, barm, or fermenting beer. Note: Ferments are of two kinds: (a) Formed or organized ferments. (b) Unorganized or structureless ferments. The latter are now called enzymes and were formerly called soluble ferments or chemical ferments. Ferments of the first class are as a rule simple microscopic vegetable organisms, and the fermentations which they engender are due to their growth and development; as, the acetic ferment, the butyric ferment, etc. See Fermentation. Ferments of the second class, on the other hand, are chemical substances; as a rule they are proteins soluble in glycerin and precipitated by alcohol. In action they are catalytic and, mainly, hydrolytic. Good examples are pepsin of the dastric juice, ptyalin of the salvia, and disease of malt. Before 1960 the term "ferment" to mean "enzyme" fell out of use. Enzymes are now known to be globular proteins, capable of catalyzing a wide variety of chemical reactions, not merely hydrolytic. The full set of enzymes causing production of ethyl alcohol from sugar has been identified and individually purified and studied. See enzyme.
2.
Intestine motion; heat; tumult; agitation. "Subdue and cool the ferment of desire." "the nation is in a ferment."
3.
A gentle internal motion of the constituent parts of a fluid; fermentation. (R.) "Down to the lowest lees the ferment ran."
ferment oils, volatile oils produced by the fermentation of plants, and not originally contained in them. These were the quintessences of the alchemists.



verb
Ferment  v. t.  (past & past part. fermented; pres. part. fermenting)  To cause ferment or fermentation in; to set in motion; to excite internal emotion in; to heat. "Ye vigorous swains! while youth ferments your blood."



Ferment  v. i.  
1.
To undergo fermentation; to be in motion, or to be excited into sensible internal motion, as the constituent particles of an animal or vegetable fluid; to work; to effervesce.
2.
To be agitated or excited by violent emotions. "But finding no redress, ferment and rage." "The intellect of the age was a fermenting intellect."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Ferment" Quotes from Famous Books



... now—what a bargain! It was not that the ideals of his college days were tarnished, but he was a man of business now, and if he would take the old man's land for a song—it was because others of his kind would do the same! But why bother, he asked himself again, when his brain was in a ferment with a colossal scheme that would make dizzy the magnates who would some day drive their roadways of steel into those wild hills. So he shook himself free of the question, which passed from his mind only with a transient wonder as to who it was that had told of him to the ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.

... "I am a genuine child of the times, and I am not ashamed of it. The greatest intellects of the day are all in a state of inner ferment. Every individual of significance is just as divided against himself as humanity on the whole. I refer, of course, only to the leading European races. I embody the Pope and Luther, William II and Robespierre, Bismarck and Bebel, ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann

... "From 1780 to 1830," says M. Taine, "Germany produced all the ideas of our historical age, and during another half-century, perhaps another century, notre grande affaire sera de les repenser." He is inclined to compare the influence of German ideas on the modern world to the ferment of the Renaissance. No spiritual force "more original, more universal, more fruitful in consequences of every sort and bearing, more capable of transforming and remaking everything presented to it, has arisen during the last three hundred years. Like the ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... pulled at the chair. Her face twitched under her veil. She looked almost terribly alive, as if indeed her mind were in a state of ferment. Yet there was in her aspect also a sort of half-submerged sluggishness. Despite her vindictive agitation, her purposeful venom, she seemed already partially bound by a cloud of sleep. That she had cast away her power to charm as useless was the greatest tribute ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens

... great ferment in the departments of the Allier, the Nievre, and the Cher, proud to possess a poet capable of rivalry with the glories of Paris. Paquita la Sevillane, by Jan Diaz, was published in the Echo du Morvan, a review which for eighteen months maintained ...
— The Muse of the Department • Honore de Balzac


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