incubation
noun
Simple meaning
Sitting on eggs so as to hatch them by the warmth of the body.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
ihngkyoobayshuhnSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ɪŋkjuˈbeɪʃən
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
Sitting on eggs so as to hatch them by the warmth of the body
Sitting on eggs for the purpose of hatching young; a brooding on, or keeping warm, to develop the life within, by any process.
pathology
Maintaining something at the most favorable temperature for its development
pathology
The development of a disease from its causes, or the period of such development.
psychology
One of the four proposed stages of creativity (preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification): the unconscious recombination of thought elements that were stimulated through conscious work at one point in time, resulting in novel ideas at a later point.
Sleeping in a temple or other holy place in order to have oracular dreams or to receive healing.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Sitting on eggs so as to hatch them by the warmth of the body
Used this way, incubation is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.