gestate

American  

[jes-tayt] / ˈdʒɛs teɪt /

verb (used with object)

gestated, gestating

1. to carry in the womb during the period from conception to delivery.

2. to think of and develop (an idea, opinion, plan, etc.) slowly in the mind.

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verb (used without object)

gestated, gestating

1. to experience the process of gestating offspring.

2. to develop slowly.

gestate British  

/ ˈdʒɛsteɪt /

verb

1. (tr) to carry (developing young) in the uterus during pregnancy

2. (tr) to develop (a plan or idea) in the mind

3. (intr) to be in the process of gestating

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Etymology

Origin of gestate

First recorded in 1865–70; from Latin gestātus, past participle of gestāre “to carry about, carry in the womb,” frequentative of gerere “to bear, perform”

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Explanation

It's unclear just how long it took for the idea for the website to gestate. Did he think of it right away, or did it take months for him to come up with the idea? When something is gestating, it's literally in the womb, developing into whatever it will be when it's finally born. Other things besides living organisms can gestate, however. Frequently, gestate is used to refer to ideas and plans while they're in the development phase. The idea for a new way to market music to a generation of kids who expect it to be free was gestating for years before iTunes was launched. A gestation period is the time it takes for something to be born. Humans, for example, gestate for nine months.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

gestate gestated gestating

It's surrogacy, or the practice in which someone with a uterus agrees to gestate and deliver a baby on the behalf of other parents.

From Salon ● Feb. 4, 2024

They will then try to create an embryo carrying that modified DNA that could gestate in an African elephant “surrogate” or an artificial uterus.

From Scientific American ● Aug. 16, 2022

Like their sea horse cousins, male sea dragons gestate a female’s fertilized eggs in a pouch.

From New York Times ● Jul. 7, 2022

“Even if we got it genetically perfect, we are still going to have to gestate it in a different species, so why would you think it would be exactly the same?”

From Science Magazine ● Mar. 9, 2022

Thus preparing the upper crust of our earth as a "placenta" ready to gestate plant and animal life.

From The Brain by Alexander Blade

Latifi, who gestated the book alongside her firstborn, argues that becoming an influencer is the modern pitch to mothers that they can raise a family without sacrificing their careers.

From Salon ● May 10, 2026

While Johnson had been invited to record closer-to-home before, it took his comfort and confidence in his collaborators to get him to finally cut these songs that gestated over neighborhood walks and late-night guitar-tinkering sessions.

From Seattle Times ● Nov. 22, 2023

In a speculative riff on the future of the womb, Hazard talks to a biolaw professor who imagines a world in which fetuses could be gestated outside the body in mechanical “biobags.”

From New York Times ● Mar. 7, 2023

“Malignant” first gestated when Wan and Bisu, who are married, started bouncing around an idea of hers while at home with their dogs.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 29, 2021

All may have spirits, from the lowest to the highest, holding the same relations to the body in which it is gestated as the spirit of man holds to his physical form.

From Studies in the Out-Lying Fields of Psychic Science by Hudson Tuttle

"The kicker is within two or three days of giving birth, they fall pregnant again so while they're rearing the first litter, they're gestating the second," Henry says.

From BBC ● May 30, 2026

These duplicitous celebrities, so the rumor mill grinds, have hired mysterious surrogates to do their gestating work.

From Slate ● Jul. 21, 2025

While this project is slowly gestating, two prominent showrunners float Kaplan’s name as a supervising producer for their new show.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 22, 2024

As you might expect, Rebeck has more work on the horizon — plenty of rewrites and updates on plays already gestating, and a new musical she is birthing with Cyndi Lauper.

From Seattle Times ● Oct. 12, 2023

One might almost say it was a result rather than a reserve; the result of a something hard at work within; a preoccupying something; a gestating something, the offspring of which was—well—what he was.

From Some Personal Recollections of Dr. Janeway by James Bayard Clark

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