INCUBATE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Incubate

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/ˈɪnkjəbˌeɪt/ Listen

verb

Incubate v. i. & v. t. (past & past part. incubated; pres. part. incubating)

To sit, as on eggs for hatching; to brood; to brood upon, or keep warm, as eggs, for the purpose of hatching.

To maintain (a living organism, such as microorganisms or a premature baby) under appropriate conditions, such as of temperature, humidity, or atmospheric composition, for growth; as, coliform bacteria grow best when incubated at 37° C..

To develop gradually in some interior environment, until fully formed; as, the ideas for his book were incubating for two years before he began to write.

See images of 'Incubate'

Etymology of 'Incubate'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Incubate" Quotes from Famous Books

... the bouillon from a pure cultivation of the B. lactis aerogenes, and incubate at 37 ...

— The Elements of Bacteriological Technique • John William Henry Eyre

... Buenos Ayres. Many rheas (ostriches) were seen from the train. These birds, the hens, lay in each other's nests, and the male incubates—perhaps to save the time of the hens; which reminds one of the cuckoo, who mates often, and whose stay is so limited that she has no time to incubate. Yet she does not lay in nests, but on the ground, and the eggs are deposited by the male in the nests of birds whose eggs they most resemble, and only one ...

— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson

... were seen from the train. These birds, the hens, lay in each other's nests, and the male incubates—perhaps to save the time of the hens; which reminds one of the cuckoo, who mates often, and whose stay is so limited that she has no time to incubate. Yet she does not lay in nests, but on the ground, and the eggs are deposited by the male in the nests of birds whose eggs they most resemble, and only one ...

— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson

... British birds, is practised by many others elsewhere, and in particular by the American troupials, or cattle-starlings. One of these indeed goes even farther, since it entrusts its eggs to the care of a nest-building cousin. There are also American cuckoos that build their own nest and incubate ...

— Birds in the Calendar • Frederick G. Aflalo

... of the vicarage, the warm sun seemed to incubate a dreamy stillness, the butterflies hardly taking the trouble to fly, and the very flowers hanging down their lazy heads; while the trees drooping their leaves, as if faint and exhausted ...

— Teddy - The Story of a Little Pickle • J. C. Hutcheson