the.com/hatch
the only door that doubles as a verb for being born.
means A small opening or door in a floor, wall, ship's deck, or aircraft — or, as a verb, to emerge from an egg (or to bring such a plan quietly into being).
from Two threads twist together here. The 'door' sense comes from Old English 'hæc,' a grated gate or half-door, related to Dutch 'hek' (fence) and lingering in 'hatchway.' The 'emerge from an egg' sense is a separate word entirely, Middle English 'hacchen,' possibly tied to the idea of producing young — and from that we also get the figurative 'hatch a plan.' The drawing sense, 'hatching' (those parallel shading lines), arrived later from French 'hacher,' to chop or cut, the same root that gives us 'hatchet.' Three unrelated hatches, sharing one spelling by sheer coincidence.
- escape route
- submarines, spacecraft, and getaway cars all rely on one
- down the hatch
- sailors named the throat after ship openings
- cross-hatching
- artists fake shadow with nothing but parallel lines
- egg tooth
- chicks grow a temporary spike to hatch out
- booby trap
- unbattened hatches sank ships in heavy seas
hatch chile — peppers grown in hatch, new mexico since the 1920s, designated official state vegetable in 1995
hatch act — 1939 u.s. federal law limiting political activities of government employees
hatch cover — watertight door on ships covering cargo holds, required by maritime law