estivate
Definitions
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- verb To pass the summer, as in a given place or in a given manner.
- verb In zoology, to pass into or remain in the summer sleep, as some mollusks; be dormant in summer.
Examples
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They hibernate — they estivate and they hibernate — until the following January, when you will have forgotten what a pain it was to follow the show week after unrewarding week, and you'll be able to feel excited by the return of the boinging theme music, and the old panel of judges, who will file in wearily and act pained that they have to sit through it all again.
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I am going to put a layer of leaf mold and ice cubes in the basement and estivate.
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I'll bet snails can estivate for a really long time, especially desert forms that only rarely encounter damp conditions.
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Other animals, such as lungfish and tortoises, burrow into the mud and estivate to survive.
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At first it looked like a vast blue fort or Valhalla; but when they began to tuck the coarse meadow hay into the crevices, and this became covered with rime and icicles, it looked like a venerable moss-grown and hoary ruin, built of azure-tinted marble, the abode of Winter, that old man we see in the almanac, -- his shanty, as if he had a design to estivate with us.
Note
The word 'estivate' comes from a Latin word meaning 'in summer, for summer.
