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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

hibernate.

To spend the winter in a dormant or inactive state of minimal activity, low body temperature, slow breathing and heart rate, and low metabolic rate; to go through a winter sleep.

9 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/ˈhaɪbə(r)ˌneɪt/UK[ˈhɑɪbəˌnɛɪt]Southern-England/ˈhaɪbəɹˌneɪt/General-American[ˈhäɪbɚˌneɪt]General-American
  1. To spend the winter in a dormant or inactive state of minimal activity, low body temperature, slow breathing and heart rate, and low metabolic rate; to go through a winter sleep.

    intransitive
    Hedgehogs and bears are two of the many mammals that hibernate in winter.
  2. To live in seclusion.

    intransitive
  3. To enter a standby state which conserves power without losing the contents of memory.

    intransitive
Where this word comes from

Borrowed from Latin hībernātus, perfect passive participle of hībernō (see -ate (verb-forming suffix)), from hībernus (“wintry”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.