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brooding

brooding

1 7.3
Sitting on eggs to keep them warm until they hatch
  • noun
  • /ˈbruːdɪŋ/
  • Specialized
translation icon : incubación
  • "The fact that wing-like forelimbs developed in more mature individuals suggests they were used only later in life," Therrien says, "perhaps associated with reproductive behaviors like display or egg brooding." 12
  • brooding frog

What's really important with this is that we spoke earlier about brooding and there is a phenomenon known as Co brooding.

Examples

  • Brooding.

  • These first images promise lots and lots of brooding from Hamm and Radcliffe, so get excited, folks.

    Blog text (12)
  • Some have far fewer young and take much better care of them, brooding their precious cargo for days, even months.

  • Egg-laying begins by April, and the brooding by the female follows.

    Blog text (18)
  • The birds were like monks, brooding and autumn-colored, Seven Dwarfs to Adeena's Snow White.

    Fiction book (1999)
  • He gestures in the direction of the river and the castle that looms on a far hill beyond, huge and brooding, regally dominating the city.

    Fiction book (1991)
  • The brooding of eggs and larvae and the scarcity of island steppingstones in the Southern Ocean have for millennia isolated the Antarctic shallow-water marine invertebrates from the rest of the world and have led to high levels of endemic species.

    Academic text (1992)
  • The mother hen is known for her diligent brooding, sitting on her eggs to keep them warm until they hatch.

  • During the brooding period, the female sparrow carefully protects her eggs from predators.

  • After laying her eggs, the bird began her brooding ritual, ensuring they received enough warmth to develop.

Synonyms

incubation
vsbrooding
  • Specialized
3 4.9

Keeping eggs or bacteria at the right temperature so they can grow

is the bird's act of sitting on eggs to hatch them by body warmth

How Attentive

brooding
  • Specialized
1 7.3
sitting
27 1.0

Surface Forms

brooding singular
broodings plural

Morphology

brooding = brood (transparent) = brood + ing

Direct verb-to-noun/gerund formation; 'brooding' names the action of incubating.

Etymology

Brooding comes from the old verb brood, which meant 'to sit on eggs', so brooding is the act of a bird keeping its eggs warm to help them hatch. That is why people use brooding for the behavior of hens, penguins, and other birds that sit on their eggs.