lager

Plurallagers

Formslagers, lagering, lagered

1. 1
   nouncountable or uncountable

   A beer brewed using a yeast that ferments at the bottom of the fermentation vessel.

   She poured each guest a glass of crisp lager.

   German breweries are famous for their pale lagers.

   Note

   The name comes from the storing, not the yeast. German Lagerbier meant "beer made for storing," from Lager, "store," a distant cousin of English lair. In English the word works two ways: it is uncountable for the drink in general (a glass of lager) and countable for its styles and brands (pale lagers). The cold storing itself survives as the brewer's verb.

2. 2
   verbtransitive

   To store lager at a low temperature so that it matures and clarifies.

   Traditional breweries lager their beer in cool caves for months.

   The brewery lagers each batch at just above freezing.

   Similarage, mature, condition

   Note

   The verb keeps alive the storing that the beer was named for. Brewers use it transitively, with the beer or the batch as its object, and its forms are regular: lagers, lagering, lagered. A lagered beer is one that has already been held cold to mature, and the -ing form often names the stage itself, as in a long lagering.

3. 3
   noun

   Alternative spelling of laager.

   The trekkers drew their wagons into a tight lager before dusk.

   Soldiers defended the lager through the long night.

   Note

   A different word that happens to share the beer's spelling. It names a camp ringed by wagons, associated especially with South African Boers, and in military use a temporary huddle of armored vehicles drawn up for resupply. Because lager so strongly suggests the beer, laager is the clearer spelling in writing. Here only context keeps a lager of wagons from being misread.

4. 4
   verb

   Alternative spelling of laager.

   The column will lager near the river before nightfall.

   Each night the scouts lager their wagons in a circle.

   Note

   Here the defensive circle becomes an action, and it works two ways. Used transitively, you lager wagons or vehicles into a ring. Used intransitively, a column lagers, camping in that formation. It shares every form with the brewer's verb: lagers, lagering, lagered. That overlap is why the laager spelling keeps the military meaning clear in writing.

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