- 1
To ripen is to become ripe, or to make something ripe. Fruit ripens on the tree or in a bowl: it grows sweeter and ready to eat. You can also ripen fruit yourself — leaving bananas in a bag, or setting green tomatoes in the sun. So the verb works two ways: the fruit does it, and a person can do it to the fruit. Though actually, people stretch it. A plan ripens; a friendship ripens; an idea ripens. That means it slowly becomes ready, like fruit. It is a calm, ordinary verb. You hear it in kitchens and shops, and a little in careful writing about ideas.
變熟、催熟（水果蔬菜；計畫或想法也可說慢慢成熟）
組成From Middle English ripenen, an extended form of ripen, from Old English rīpian. In the modern form it is ripe + -en, a suffix meaning “to become” or “to make.” English was losing an old verb ending -en around then, and that ending could be heard as part of this word. The oldest related form is Middle English ripening, “causing ripeness.”
原始詞典資料4 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
ripenverb/ˈɹaɪpən/
- 1
Of grain, fruit, flowers, etc., to grow ripe; to become mature.
- Grapes ripen in the sun.
- […] the desert soil of the Great Basin is as rich in the elements that in rainy regions rise and ripen into food as that of any other State in the Union.
- 2
To approach or come to perfection.
- The acquaintance soon ripened into a warm attachment.
- 3
To cause (something) to mature; to make ripe.
- The warm sun ripened the corn.
- 4
To mature; to fit or prepare; to bring to perfection.
- ripen the judgment
- When Faith and Love which parted from thee never Had ripen'd thy just soul to dwell with God
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。