Word.ws English Dictionary

gestating

gestating is the present participle and gerund of gestate.

Meaning of gestate

Verb

gestate (third-person singular simple present gestates, present participle gestating, simple past and past participle gestated)

  1. (intransitive) To carry offspring in the uterus from conception to delivery.
    • In the early 1960s, a study was conducted in which gestating rats were given diets containing the same mineral content of mineral salts or amino acid chelates.2012, H. DeWayne Ashmead, Amino Acid Chelation in Human and Animal Nutrition, CRC Press, →ISBN
  2. (broadly, intransitive) To develop an idea.
    • Philip wondered at that five-year gap. Perhaps it simply proved that a work of genius takes longer to gestate than a work of mere competent brilliance.1986, David Leavitt, The Lost Language of Cranes, paperback edition, Penguin, page 112

Questions about gestating

What is gestating the present participle and gerund of?
Gestating is the present participle and gerund of gestate.

Words near gestating in the dictionary

  1. Gestapo
  2. Gestapolike
  3. gestate
  4. gestated
  5. gestates
  6. gestating
  7. gestation
  8. gestation crate
  9. gestation crates
  10. gestation period
  11. gestation periods

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gestating (page history and authors); gestate (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “gestating.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gestating. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.