Noah Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language

1. (v. t.) To cross with lines in a peculiar manner in drawing and engraving. See Hatching.

2. (v. t.) To cross; to spot; to stain; to steep.

3. (v. t.) To produce, as young, from an egg or eggs by incubation, or by artificial heat; to produce young from (eggs); as, the young when hatched.

4. (v. t.) To contrive or plot; to form by meditation, and bring into being; to originate and produce; to concoct; as, to hatch mischief; to hatch heresy.

5. (v. i.) To produce young; -- said of eggs; to come forth from the egg; -- said of the young of birds, fishes, insects, etc.

6. (n.) The act of hatching.

7. (n.) Development; disclosure; discovery.

8. (n.) The chickens produced at once or by one incubation; a brood.

9. (n.) A door with an opening over it; a half door, sometimes set with spikes on the upper edge.

10. (n.) A frame or weir in a river, for catching fish.

11. (n.) A flood gate; a sluice gate.

12. (n.) A bedstead.

13. (n.) An opening in the deck of a vessel or floor of a warehouse which serves as a passageway or hoistway; a hatchway; also; a cover or door, or one of the covers used in closing such an opening.

14. (n.) An opening into, or in search of, a mine.

15. (v. t.) To close with a hatch or hatches.