To thicken, as fluids; to bring to greater consistence by evaporating the thinner parts, etc.
My mother often made fun of me for my early failures at making pancakes. After an early success at summer camp — a success which made me the breakfast hero for one multi-day hike — I found it impossible to remember how the things were made. It was disappointing for me to come home from the woods (hah) and attempt to show off my cooking skills only to find I could not remember when to mix the batter, when to pour it, how thick to make it before pouring it into the pan. Something about bubbles? I came home with hopes of impressing my mother with my pancake browning skills but when I failed she delivered a rehearsed-but-never-spoken sermon on how men are incapable of the things women can do, and "it’s strange!" My mother looked out the window, philosophical, seeming to mine the vacant suburban landscape for an answer but I knew at a young age that in response to these questions the most articulate answer would be rejected or simply ignored. Waved away. I never connected with my mother’s ideas about the differences between the sexes, and in fact for most of my time she has only mentioned it occasionally, seemingly at random. My mother delivered the first "Fuck You" middle finger gesture I ever saw in person, this done as part of my mother’s demonstration of a gesture Billie Jean King made in response to hecklers ridiculing her openly gay sexuality. My mother often commented that lesbians had a right to be militant, had a right to bend things back to where they should be, whatever the short-term damage.
