incubate.
To brood, raise, or maintain eggs, organisms, or living tissue through the provision of ideal environmental conditions.
Meaning & usage
To brood, raise, or maintain eggs, organisms, or living tissue through the provision of ideal environmental conditions.
To incubate metaphorically; to ponder an idea slowly and deliberately as if in preparation for hatching it.
Where this word comes from
First attested in 1641; borrowed from Latin incubātus, an alternative to incubitus, perfect passive participle of incubō (“to hatch”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and -ate (adjective-forming suffix)), from in- (“in”) + cubō (“to lie”).
A preparation, or material, that has been incubated.
Where this word comes from
First attested in 1641; borrowed from Latin incubātus, an alternative to incubitus, perfect passive participle of incubō (“to hatch”) (see -ate (verb-forming suffix) and -ate (adjective-forming suffix)), from in- (“in”) + cubō (“to lie”).
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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.