Incubation

How to spell incubation

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce incubation

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does incubation mean?

1. nounThe process or period during which something develops quietly before it becomes active or apparent.
2. nounThe structured support and nurturing of a new company during its earliest stage.

Incubation in a sentence

• The virus has an incubation period of several days before symptoms show.

• The university runs an incubation programme for graduate entrepreneurs.

• Careful incubation of the eggs kept them at a steady, warm temperature.

• Funding during incubation helped the small team survive its first winter.

Where does incubation come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb incubare, which literally meant 'to lie upon' or 'to lie down on', formed from in- ('in' or 'upon') and cubare ('to lie down'). In Roman usage it described a bird sitting on its eggs, brooding them with the warmth of its body until they hatched, which is exactly the image preserved in the modern sense. The related noun incubatio passed into English in the early 1600s, first in the literal sense of hatching eggs and the religious practice of sleeping in a temple to receive a healing dream. From there the meaning broadened to the hidden, warming period during which a disease quietly develops before its symptoms appear, and later still to the nurturing of new businesses. The same cubare root underlies words such as 'incumbent' (one who lies or rests upon a duty) and the unsettling 'incubus', a demon once imagined to lie upon sleepers.

How the word is built

• in- (in, upon)
• cub (from cubare: to lie down)
• -ation (noun of action or process)