gravitate
Americanverb (used without object)
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gravitates,
present (3rd person singular)
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gravitated,
past participle, past
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gravitating
present participle
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to move or tend to move under the influence of gravitational force.
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to tend toward the lowest level; sink; fall.
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to have a natural tendency or be strongly attracted (usually followed by to ortoward ).
Musicians gravitate toward one another.
verb
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physics to move under the influence of gravity
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to be influenced or drawn, as by strong impulses
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to sink or settle
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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gravitatesimple
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gravitatessimple
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have gravitatedperfect
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has gravitatedperfect
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am gravitatingprogressive
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are gravitatingprogressive
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is gravitatingprogressive
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have been gravitatingperfect progressive
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has been gravitatingperfect progressive
Past
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gravitatedsimple
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had gravitatedperfect
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was gravitatingprogressive
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were gravitatingprogressive
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had been gravitatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of gravitate
First recorded in 1635–45; from New Latin gravitātus (past participle of gravitāre “to obey the laws of gravitation,” coined by Sir Isaac Newton ); see gravity, -ate 1
Explanation
To gravitate is to move toward or feel attracted to something. People gravitate toward things they like. Gravitate used to refer to how gravity pulls objects toward the Earth, but now it also describes how people are pulled toward things they like. Little kids gravitate towards playgrounds, someone athletic will gravitate toward sports, and someone with a nice voice might gravitate toward a singing career. Dogs gravitate toward squirrels — they move toward them whenever they have a chance. But don’t blame gravity for that one!
Vocabulary lists containing gravitate
Good Grief!: Grav, Griev
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"Simplexity," Vocabulary from the science writing
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Stargirl
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
It strikes me that the people who gravitate toward these bots not only feel lonely but also are actively excluded from circles of support.
From Slate ● Sep. 29, 2026
“People that are giving an honest take about films and what they thought, even if they didn’t love it . . . I think that’s where people will just gravitate towards naturally.”
From Salon ● Sep. 9, 2026
Most viewers who gravitate to this “Hollywood Crime Story” installment will know something of American film history.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 11, 2026
But some say traders who gravitate toward these products see big swings in the underlying stocks as a feature, not a bug.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 9, 2026
He could see how a junior scythe might gravitate toward Goddard’s flash and charisma.
From "Scythe" by Neal Shusterman
Even now as an adult, Tashjian said it's still difficult for her to fathom large numbers of people dying in any event, and she still gravitates toward individual anecdotes to help her understand 9/11's toll.
From BBC ● Sep. 11, 2026
Frick gravitates toward books about people “who thought their life was going to follow a certain script, and then something shifts and the script changes,” she says.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 5, 2026
They are the kinds of stocks Warren Buffett External link gravitates toward.
From Barron's ● Feb. 2, 2026
The actor, who hails from Merseyside, England, often gravitates to characters with a sense of grit, even in bigger blockbusters like “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” and “Venom: Let There Be Carnage.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 11, 2025
Lately Gogol has started to notice a trend: now that they inhabit this world of couples, dinner party small talk gravitates to the naming of children.
From "The Namesake" by Jhumpa Lahiri
You both gravitated toward Norman Rockwell’s “The Problem We All Live With” — why did it stand out to you?
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 23, 2026
He also emphasized that Target had “much more work to do” to win back consumers, who have gravitated to rivals that have been able to offer deeper discounts.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 21, 2026
Investors looked past low yields and gravitated to stability in an economy that is increasingly dependent on the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026
Instead, I gravitated toward a pile of thin-necked yellow summer squash.
From Salon ● Aug. 4, 2026
It was also where I was playing the most gigs, so to keep earning I naturally gravitated that way.
From "Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood" by Trevor Noah
Investors have been gravitating back toward parts of the stock market that are “less reliant on lower rates,” said Kourkafas.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 26, 2026
They are gravitating toward brand nostalgia and physical store experiences, trends he believes favor Gap’s brands.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 15, 2026
“People are gravitating to people that they trust,” Hillard said.
From Salon ● Sep. 9, 2026
Meanwhile, masked flower bearers started to appear, gravitating towards the scene of the incident and laying vibrant bouquets at the base of what has now been dubbed the Justice Tree.
From BBC ● Aug. 23, 2026
Without electrical forces, there would no longer be things in the universe—merely diffuse clouds of electrons, protons and neutrons, and gravitating spheres of elementary particles, the featureless remnants of worlds.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
