fermentation
/fəːmɛnˈteɪʃ(ə)n
/noun [mass noun]
1The chemical breakdown of a substance by bacteria, yeasts, or other microorganisms, typically involving effervescence and the giving off of heat: the fermentation of organic matter by micro-organisms in the gut...
- Some short-chain fatty acids are produced by bacterial fermentation of dietary carbohydrates.
- As a result, partial chemical/enzymatic digestion and limited bacterial fermentation occur.
- Gas is caused by the fermentation of carbohydrates broken down by bacteria, a perfectly normal part of digestion.
1.1The fermentation process involved in the making of beers, wines, and spirits, in which sugars are converted to ethyl alcohol.They can have the positive effect of precipitating malolactic fermentation in wines with an excess of malic acid....
- There are a variety of ways to vinify sparkling wine, but all are based on taking an already fermented wine through a second fermentation process in a sealed container.
- Pump an oak-loving white grape into a barrel to ferment and a richer, creamier wine is the result; finish off a red wine's fermentation in barrel and the reward is a softer, more approachable wine.
2 archaic Agitation; excitement: I had found Paris in high fermentation
Derivatives
fermentative
/ adjective ...- By definition, foregut fermentors comprise animals with a pregastric fermentation chambers such as the rumen, reticulum, and omasum of ruminants and diverticula or fermentative sacs of other ruminant-like mammals.
- It is well established that adaptive responses, such as increased alcohol dehydrogenase gene expression and fermentative metabolism, are initiated under conditions of hypoxia, as well as anoxia.
- The fermentative activity of these microbes results in the production of volatile fatty acids that are absorbed by the host animal and make a variable and in some cases considerable contribution to its nutritional economy.
Origin
Late Middle English: from late Latin fermentatio(n-), from Latin fermentare 'to ferment' (see ferment).