English
ferment
Ferment comes from Latin fermentāre ‘to leaven, ferment’, and goes back to fermentum.
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEfermentum‘substance causing fermentation’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEfermentāre‘to leaven, ferment’
- Middle Frenchc. 1400–1600ferment
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500same form
- Englishearliest quotation 1713same form
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed
Earlier history uncertain.
Lineage
- Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEfermentum‘substance causing fermentation’
- Latin, derivedc. 75 BCE–200 CEfermentāre‘to leaven, ferment’
- Middle Frenchc. 1400–1600ferment
- Middle Englishc. 1150–1500same form
- Englishearliest quotation 1713same form
Earliest quotation: 1713, Alexander Pope, Windsor-Forest. […]: “Ye vigorous swains! while youth ferments your blood.”
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *bʰrewh₁- ‘to boil’
brand, burn, bread, purple, brew, bourbon, broth, bourne, brim, brunt, broil, bren, porphyry, briny, purpura, 39 more
through Proto-Italic *ferweō
through Latin ferveō ‘to be hot’
Today it means
verb To react, using fermentation; especially to produce alcohol by aging or by allowing yeast to act on sugars; to brew.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Latin fermentum / ferment