a. [f. L. fermentāt- ppl. stem of fermentāre + -IVE. Cf. Fr. fermentatif.]
1. Of, pertaining to, or of the nature of fermentation; developed by fermentation.
1665. Hooke, Microgr., 122. Vegetation, which is set a moving by the putrifactive and fermentative heat.
1693. Blancard, Phys. Dict., 205/2. Some filthy and fermentative Matter.
1757. A. Cooper, Distiller, I. ii. (1760), 10. The succeeding Separation, or fermentative Motion, is a very different Thing.
1850. Daubeny, Atom. Th., x. (ed. 2), 350. On examining the ferment of beer under the microscope, he found it made up of these little globules, called by him ‘Torula cerevisiæ,’ and watching it during the continuance of the fermentative process, he perceived new globules appearing, attached to, or emanating from those originally present.
1869. E. A. Parkes, A Manual of Practical Hygiene (ed. 3), 20. The organic matter may, under certain conditions, commence to undergo fermentative changes, and then becomes suddenly poisonous.
2. Tending to cause or undergo fermentation.
1661. J. Childrey, Brit. Bacon., 43. I doubt whether either of them hath any thing of a fermentative power in them.
1671. Grew, The Anatomy of Plants, I. i. § 31 (1682), 7. Beer, or any other Fermentative Liquor.
1748. Hartley, Observations on Man, I. i. 46. The fermentative Disposition of the fresh Chyle.
1876. Foster, Phys., II. i. 219. The fermentative activity of yeast.
Hence Fermentatively adv., and Fermentativeness.
1684. Tyson, in Hist. R. Soc., iv. 172. The white and yolk of an egg; the yolk being the sulphureous pabulum analogous to chyle; the white being the nitrous pabulum analogous to the air in breathing animals: which he concluded from its fermentativeness to be impregnated with air.
1890. Webster, Fermentatively.
