RIPEN • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Ripen

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/rˈaɪpən/ Listen

verb

Ripen v. t.

To cause to mature; to make ripe; as, the warm days ripened the corn.

To mature; to fit or prepare; to bring to perfection; as, to ripen the judgment. "When faith and love, which parted from thee never, Had ripined thy iust soul to dwell with God."

Ripen v. i. (past & past part. ripened;pres. part. ripening)

To grow ripe; to become mature, as grain, fruit, flowers, and the like; as, grapes ripen in the sun.

To approach or come to perfection.

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Etymology of 'Ripen'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Ripen" Quotes from Famous Books

... Steamer friendships ripen quickly. It is true that, as a general thing, they perish with equal suddenness. The moment a man sets his foot on solid land the glamour of the sea seems to leave him, and the friend to whom he was ready to swear eternal ...

— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr

... Some are thrust into the streets by dissolute parents, some are orphans, some are voluntary outcasts, and others drift here from the surrounding country. Wherever they may come from, or however they may get here, they are here, and they are nearly all leading a vagrant life which will ripen into ...

— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... Duckling turned out a swan, you remember. I've always been fond of the boy because he's so genuine and original. Crude as a green apple now, but sound at the core, and only needs time to ripen. I'm sure he'll turn out a capital specimen of the ...

— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott

... brain through the senses of smell and sight. He even feels the influence of the seasons, and writes from Provence: "The sap is rising in me, it is true. The spring that I find just awakening here stirs all my plant nature, and causes me to produce those literary fruits that ripen in ...

— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... of the last century the grist mill, a couple of miles from Lewes, although it was at most but fifty or sixty years old, had all a look of weather-beaten age, for the cypress shingles, of which it was built, ripen in a few years of wind and weather to a silvery, hoary gray, and the white powdering of flour lent it a look as though the dust of ages had settled upon it, making the shadows within dim, soft, mysterious. A dozen willow trees shaded with dappling, shivering ripples of shadow the road before ...

— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard Pyle

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