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say it: fur-MENT
ferment is a verb and noun meaning "be in an agitated or excited state". It is pronounced /fɚˈmɛnt/ — fur-MENT. It carries 7 recorded senses.
cause to undergo fermentation
“We ferment the grapes for a very long time to achieve high alcohol content”
“The vintner worked the wine in big oak vats”
go sour or spoil
“The milk has soured”
“The wine worked”
“The cream has turned--we have to throw it out”
a state of agitation or turbulent change or development
“the political ferment produced new leadership”
“social unrest”
a substance capable of bringing about fermentation
a process in which an agent causes an organic substance to break down into simpler substances; especially, the anaerobic breakdown of sugar into alcohol
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for ferment come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.