Question

macerate verb Macerate is derived from the Latin verb macerare, which means "to soften" or "to steep," and, in Late Latin, can also mean "to mortify (the flesh)." Macerate first entered English in the mid-1500s to refer both to the wasting away of flesh especially by fasting and to softening or steeping. A few other manifestations sprouted thereafter from the word's figurative branch (e.g., the 18th-century novelist Laurence Sterne once wrote of "a city so macerated with expectation"); however, those extensions wilted in time. Today, the "steeping" and "soaking" senses of macerate saturate culinary articles (as in "macerating fruit in liquor") as well as other writings (scientific ones, for instance: "the food is macerated in the gizzard" or "the wood is macerated in the solution"). 1 : to cause to waste away by or as if by excessive fasting2 : to soften by steeping or soaking so as to separate the parts

Accepted Answer

January 29, 2017 MASS-uh-rayt "Absinthe is made by macerating herbs and spices … with the grand wormwood (Artemisia absinthium) that gives the drink its name." — Julia Reed, Newsweek, 12 Apr. 2010"Choose whatever berries you'd like for a topping, and let them macerate in the sugar until they yield a little syrup." — Dorie Greenspan, The Washington Post, 10 Aug. 2016

Word	macerate
Date	January 29, 2017
Type	verb
Syllables	MASS-uh-rayt
Etymology	Macerate is derived from the Latin verb macerare, which means "to soften" or "to steep," and, in Late Latin, can also mean "to mortify (the flesh)." Macerate first entered English in the mid-1500s to refer both to the wasting away of flesh especially by fasting and to softening or steeping. A few other manifestations sprouted thereafter from the word's figurative branch (e.g., the 18th-century novelist Laurence Sterne once wrote of "a city so macerated with expectation"); however, those extensions wilted in time. Today, the "steeping" and "soaking" senses of macerate saturate culinary articles (as in "macerating fruit in liquor") as well as other writings (scientific ones, for instance: "the food is macerated in the gizzard" or "the wood is macerated in the solution").
Examples	"Absinthe is made by macerating herbs and spices … with the grand wormwood (Artemisia absinthium) that gives the drink its name." — Julia Reed, Newsweek, 12 Apr. 2010 "Choose whatever berries you'd like for a topping, and let them macerate in the sugar until they yield a little syrup." — Dorie Greenspan, The Washington Post, 10 Aug. 2016
Definition	1 : to cause to waste away by or as if by excessive fasting 2 : to soften by steeping or soaking so as to separate the parts

Macerate Macerated Verb Fasting January Mass Uh Rayt Derived Latin