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hibernate

more about hibernate

hibernate


  3  definitions  found 
 
  From  Webster's  Revised  Unabridged  Dictionary  (1913)  [web1913]: 
 
  Hibernate  \Hi"ber*nate\,  v.  i.  [imp.  &  p.  p.  {Hibernated};  p. 
  pr  &  vb  n.  {Hibernating}.]  [L.  hibernare,  hibernatum  fr 
  hibernu?  wintry.  See  {Hibernal}.] 
  To  winter;  to  pass  the  season  of  winter  in  close  quarters,  in 
  a  torpid  or  lethargic  state,  as  certain  mammals,  reptiles, 
  and  insects. 
 
  Inclination  would  lead  me  to  hibernate,  during  half  the 
  year,  in  this  uncomfortable  climate  of  Great  Britain. 
  --Southey. 
 
  From  WordNet  r  1.6  [wn]: 
 
  hibernate 
  v  :  sleep  during  winter,  as  of  certain  animals,  such  as  bears 
  [syn:  {hole  up}]  [ant:  {estivate}] 
 
  From  THE  DEVIL'S  DICTIONARY  ((C)1911  Released  April  15  1993)  [devils]: 
 
  HIBERNATE,  v.i.  To  pass  the  winter  season  in  domestic  seclusion. 
  There  have  been  many  singular  popular  notions  about  the  hibernation  of 
  various  animals.  Many  believe  that  the  bear  hibernates  during  the 
  whole  winter  and  subsists  by  mechanically  sucking  its  paws.  It  is 
  admitted  that  it  comes  out  of  its  retirement  in  the  spring  so  lean 
  that  it  had  to  try  twice  before  it  can  cast  a  shadow.  Three  or  four 
  centuries  ago,  in  England,  no  fact  was  better  attested  than  that 
  swallows  passed  the  winter  months  in  the  mud  at  the  bottom  of  their 
  brooks,  clinging  together  in  globular  masses.  They  have  apparently 
  been  compelled  to  give  up  the  custom  and  account  of  the  foulness  of 
  the  brooks.  Sotus  Ecobius  discovered  in  Central  Asia  a  whole  nation 
  of  people  who  hibernate.  By  some  investigators,  the  fasting  of  Lent 
  is  supposed  to  have  been  originally  a  modified  form  of  hibernation,  to 
  which  the  Church  gave  a  religious  significance;  but  this  view  was 
  strenuously  opposed  by  that  eminent  authority,  Bishop  Kip,  who  did  not 
  wish  any  honors  denied  to  the  memory  of  the  Founder  of  his  family. 
 
 




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