Sekirov Dictionary

leaven

/ˈlɛv.ən/

verb 5
noun 3
forms 5
phrases 1

verb5

•
To add a leavening agent.
- Yeast is used to leaven bread, making it rise during baking.
•
(figurative) To temper an action, decision, attitude, characteristic, etc.
- Duke. No more euasion: We haue with a leauen'd, and prepared choice Proceeded to you; therefore take your honors:[...] — 1603
•
(figurative) To imbue; to infect; to vitiate.
- The comedian's jokes helped leaven the atmosphere during the serious meeting.
- Her optimism seemed to leaven the otherwise tense environment.
To cause to rise by fermentation.
To rise or become larger; to prove.

noun3

Any agent used to make dough rise or to have a similar effect on baked goods.
•
(figurative) Anything that induces change, especially a corrupting or vitiating change.
- Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, and of the leaven of Herod. — 1611
•
(Judaism) Chametz.
- On the fourteenth day of Nisan men search for leaven by candlelight. — 1878

forms

leavened · leavening · leaveneth · leavens · leavenest

Phrases with leaven

of the same leaven
Of a kind, cut from the same cloth.

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