Fatten

//ˈfætən// verb

verb ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To cause (a person or animal) to be fat or fatter. transitive

    "We must fatten the turkey in time for Thanksgiving."

  2. 2
    make fat or plump wordnet
  3. 3
    To become fat or fatter. intransitive

    "He gradually fattened in the five years after getting married."

  4. 4
    To make thick or thicker (often something containing paper, especially money). transitive

    "“You horrible old man, you’ve always tried to turn Erik into a slave, to fatten your pocketbook! […]”"

  5. 5
    To become thick or thicker. intransitive

    "A broad river of white paper rushed constantly up from the cylinder and leaped into a mangling chaos of machinery whence it emerged a second later, cut, printed, folded and stacked, sliding along a board with a hundred others in a fattening sheaf."

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  1. 6
    To make (soil) fertile and fruitful. transitive

    "to fatten land"

  2. 7
    To become fertile and fruitful. intransitive

    "These hostile Fields shall fatten with thy Blood."

Synonyms

All synonyms
acculturateadd toadvanceaggrandizealimentameliorate

Example

More examples

"You'll fatten up if you eat that much."

Etymology

From fat + -en.

Related phrases

fatten the curvefatten upfatten up

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.