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fattening

Adjective
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Causing a person or animal to become fuller, heavier, or richer in condition; it may describe food, abundance, or imagery of growth and excess.

Detailed Definition
Here fattening describes rain that nourishes the land and helps plants grow. The word is not obscure, but this participial adjective is used in a slightly specialized, poetic way to mean productive or enriching. It fits the poem’s agricultural imagery of rain feeding life.
Example
Example in poetry:
“But for fattening rain” describes rain that nourishes crops or soil; “Fattening rain darkened the fields with promise”; “The fattening rains woke barley from dust”; “A fattening season filled the orchards”
Additional Notes
In the quoted line, "fattening" is used in a specialized poetic sense of making the land grow, which may be less familiar than its everyday use.; Found in the poem, Winter Rain by Christina Rossetti
Also Known As
enriching nourishing fattening up cultivating
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