FATTEN

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does fatten mean? 

• FATTEN (verb)
  The verb FATTEN has 1 sense:

1. make fat or plump

  Familiarity information: FATTEN used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• FATTEN (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they fatten    ... he / she / it fattens   
Past simple: fattened   
Past participle: fattened   
-ing form: fattening   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Make fat or plump

Classified under:

Verbs of eating and drinking

Synonyms:

fat; fatten; fatten out; fatten up; fill out; flesh out; plump; plump out

Context example:

We will plump out that poor starving child

Hypernyms (to "fatten" is one way to...):

alter; change; modify (cause to change; make different; cause a transformation)

"Fatten" entails doing...:

feed; give (give food to)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody

 Context examples 

The vampire live on, and cannot die by mere passing of the time; he can flourish when that he can fatten on the blood of the living.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

She had married a man named Oakshott, and lived in Brixton Road, where she fattened fowls for the market.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Yes, said the cook, and weighed her in his hand; she has spared no trouble to fatten herself, and has been waiting to be roasted long enough.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

‘The other is a good three pound heavier,’ said she, ‘and we fattened it expressly for you.’

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Hansel, however, stretched out a little bone to her, and the old woman, who had dim eyes, could not see it, and thought it was Hansel’s finger, and was astonished that there was no way of fattening him.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

Evidently some wild wag of an oculist set them there to fatten his practice in the borough of Queens, and then sank down himself into eternal blindness or forgot them and moved away.

(The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald)