Both Uses of
ferment
in
Middlemarch
- Romanticism, which has helped to fill some dull blanks with love and knowledge, had not yet penetrated the times with its leaven and entered into everybody's food; it was fermenting still as a distinguishable vigorous enthusiasm in certain long-haired German artists at Rome, and the youth of other nations who worked or idled near them were sometimes caught in the spreading movement.†
Chpt 2 *
- It was a little too provoking even for her self-control that this blooming youngster should flourish on the disappointments of sadder and wiser people—making a meal of a nightingale and never knowing it—and that all the while his family should suppose that hers was in eager need of this sprig; and her vexation had fermented the more actively because of its total repression towards her husband.†
Chpt 6
Definition:
-
(ferment as in: ferment grapes) chemically change by a living agent -- such as when yeast or bacteria changes sugar to alcohol when making wine