RIPEN

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does ripen mean? 

• RIPEN (verb)
  The verb RIPEN has 2 senses:

1. cause to ripen or develop fully

2. grow ripe

  Familiarity information: RIPEN used as a verb is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• RIPEN (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they ripen    ... he / she / it ripens   
Past simple: ripened   
Past participle: ripened   
-ing form: ripening   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Cause to ripen or develop fully

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

mature; ripen

Context example:

Age matures a good wine

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

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

Cause:

ripen (grow ripe)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s something

Derivation:

ripening (coming to full development; becoming mature)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Grow ripe

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Context example:

The plums ripen in July

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

grow; maturate; mature (develop and reach maturity; undergo maturation)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s

Derivation:

ripening (coming to full development; becoming mature)

 Context examples 

Sometimes a life glides away, and finds it still ripening in the shade.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

“That may be done without horses. Come, and eat my strawberries. They are ripening fast.”

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

We shall make our bed of dried leaves; the sun will shine on us as on man and will ripen our food.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

I watched them, Watson, and I picked them as they ripened.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

This gave them time for each other that they had never had before, and their intimacy ripened fast.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

I see trees laden with ripening fruit.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

There was field upon field of ripening grain, with well-paved roads running between, and pretty rippling brooks with strong bridges across them.

(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)

The fruit is a multiple fruit that has a pungent odor when ripening, and is hence also known as cheese fruit or even vomit fruit.

(Morinda citrifolia, NCI Thesaurus)

A little more sunshine to ripen the nut, then, not a boy's impatient shake, but a man's hand reached up to pick it gently from the burr, and find the kernal sound and sweet.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

He stopped and looked at me, and said:—My friend John, when the corn is grown, even before it has ripened—while the milk of its mother-earth is in him, and the sunshine has not yet begun to paint him with his gold, the husbandman he pull the ear and rub him between his rough hands, and blow away the green chaff, and say to you: 'Look! he's good corn; he will make good crop when the time comes.'

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)