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''leaven'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260708144405-00-⌔

leaven - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

leaven (countable and uncountable, plural leavens)

  • 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.1
    • ✤ On the far side was reflected a single red and meteoric cloud, which had treasured one last crimson ray from the sunset, or perhaps nursed within it the fiery leaven.2
    • ✤ The leaven of insincerity worked through all the fibres of his being.3
  • (Judaism) Chametz.
    • ✤ On the fourteenth day of Nisan men search for leaven by candlelight.4

Verb

leaven (third-person singular simple present leavens, present participle leavening, simple past and past participle leavened)

  • (transitive) To add a leavening agent.
    • ✤ Yeast is used to leaven bread, making it rise during baking.
  • (transitive) To cause to rise by fermentation.
  • (transitive, figuratively) 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:[…]      5
    • ✤ “A tinge of Jewish blood is not a bad thing. It leavens the”—she looked at him—“stolid stupidity of the ordinary Englishman.”6
    • ✤ With fresh material, taxonomic conclusions are leavened by recognition that the material examined reflects the site it occupied; a herbarium packet gives one only a small fraction of the data desirable for sound conclusions. Herbarium material does not, indeed, allow one to extrapolate safely: what you see is what you get […]7
  • (transitive, figuratively) 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.
    • ✤ With these and the like deceivable doctrines, he levens also his prayer.8
    • ✤ […] pursue virtue virtuously: leven not good actions, nor render virtues disputable. Stain not fair acts with foul intentions […]9
  • To rise or become larger; to prove.

Etymology

From Middle English levayn, borrowed from Old French levain, from Vulgar Latin ﹡levāmen, a noun based on Latin levō (“raise”).

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation, General American, Canada) IPA: /ˈlɛv.ən/, [ˈlɛvn̩]
    • Audio (California): 🔊
  • (Australian, New Zealand) IPA: /ˈlev.ən/, [ˈlevn̩]
  • Rhymes: -ɛvən

Printed 2026-07-08.

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Footnotes

  1. 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Mark 8:15: ↩

  2. 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXXVI, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 299: ↩

  3. 1926, T.E. Lawrence, Seven Pillars of Wisdom, New York: Anchor, published 1991, page 213: ↩

  4. 1878, “On The Passover”, in Joseph Barclay, transl., The Talmud, page 95: ↩

  5. c. 1603–1604 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]: ↩

  6. 1920, Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, London: Pan Books, published 1954, page 125: ↩

  7. 1992, Rudolf M[athias] Schuster, The Hepaticae and Anthocerotae of North America: East of the Hundredth Meridian, volume V, Chicago, Ill.: Field Museum of Natural History, →ISBN, page vii: ↩

  8. 1649, John Milton, Eikonoklastes ‎, London, published 1756, page 30: ↩

  9. 1716, Thomas Browne, edited by Samuel Johnson, Christian Morals ‎, 2nd edition, London: J. Payne, published 1756, Part I, p. 7: ↩

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