Thesaurus.com
Dictionary.com
Definitions

incubate

[in-kyuh-beyt, ing-] / ˈɪn kjəˌbeɪt, ˈɪŋ- /
VERB
hatch
Synonyms


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:

Among its members are Ulukaya, who has promised to give away most of his fortune, and plans to use part of Chobani’s new city offices to incubate food startups.

From The Wall Street Journal Aug. 27, 2026

While Nile crocodile eggs naturally incubate in underground nests in the wild, zoos typically hatch them in carefully controlled incubators, closely monitoring the temperature and humidity.

From Barron's Aug. 26, 2026

Yet the festival, the labs and the institute have remained a constant through it all, continuing to incubate fresh talent to launch to the industry.

From Los Angeles Times Sep. 16, 2025

He stayed back to incubate the egg while Wisdom headed back to sea for a time, researchers said.

From New York Times Dec. 6, 2024

The shells of her eggs would be thin and eventually smash when she tried to incubate them.

From "Frightful's Mountain" by Jean Craighead George

For more than 70 years, most annual flu vaccines have come from a manufacturing process that incubates the virus in chicken eggs.

From Slate Aug. 6, 2026

The male incubates the eggs for up to two months and looks after the hatchlings.

From BBC Sep. 8, 2024

Stockton also incubates eggs and cares for the turtles in the first year of their lives.

From Seattle Times Jun. 8, 2022

Nothing incubates bad behavior better than the unconscious good behavior of people invested in creating a facade of togetherness.

From Washington Post Feb. 20, 2022

The emergence of hiv was subtle: it incubates for years in a human host before it kills the host.

From "The Hot Zone" by Richard Preston

McLeod’s startup was incubated at Hinge, and Match Group, which owns Tinder and Hinge, is an investor.

From The Wall Street Journal Aug. 3, 2026

The National Robotarium at Heriot-Watt University is leading breakthroughs in medical and offshore robotics, having incubated 14 companies in its first few years.

From BBC Mar. 20, 2026

It was fitting that the dogfight took place at Edwards Air Force Base, a vast desert facility where Chuck Yeager broke the speed of sound and the military has incubated its most secret aerospace advances.

From Seattle Times May 3, 2024

She used a pair of electrodes to deliver an 80-millisecond electric pulse to some samples, then incubated all the cells for 12 hours.

From Science Daily Apr. 30, 2024

We are safe, well ventilated, and incubated, provided we can avoid technologies that might fiddle with that ozone, or shift the levels of carbon dioxide.

From "The Lives of a Cell" by Lewis Thomas

Soil was a metaphor for the growth we were incubating in our lives.

From The Wall Street Journal Jul. 29, 2026

“We are now taking the foundry part of what we had been incubating and creating that as a resource” for the U.S. government, he said.

From MarketWatch May 22, 2026

Dorset's much-loved ospreys are incubating another bumper clutch of four eggs and all eyes are on their nest cam, waiting for the first chick to appear.

From BBC May 2, 2026

Curiously, DDT did not kill the birds outright, but rather caused their eggshells to collapse under the weight of the incubating adults.

From Slate Feb. 21, 2026

He’d traveled around the Midwest on a summer rec-league team that featured an incubating superstar named Isaiah Thomas, who would later go on to a Hall of Fame career in the NBA.

From "Becoming" by Michelle Obama




Vocabulary lists containing incubate


Vocabulary.com logo
by dictionary.com

Dictionary.com's Learning Companion

Go beyond just looking up words.
Remember them forever with VocabTrainer.

Start training