incubate

verb

1. (transitive)To brood, raise, or maintain eggs, organisms, or living tissue through the provision of ideal environmental conditions.

   “The places where the birds are nesting are interesting spots to visit. Both parents incubate and the scene is animated as the birds fly about in all directions.”

   “Part of our problem in praying for our children, he suggested, is the time lage, the necessary slow maturation of our prayers. But that's the way of God's rhythm in nature. For instance, the hen must patiently sit on her eggs to incubate them before the baby chicks hatch.”

   “The mother dead these fourteen years did incubate in her own bosom the creature who would carry her off.”

   “The female cichlid fish are called "mouth breeders," which means they incubate eggs in their mouth.”

2. (figuratively, transitive)To incubate metaphorically; to ponder an idea slowly and deliberately as if in preparation for hatching it.

   “It was a habit he developed, of incubating and maturing his thought upon a subject, and of then rushing into the type-writer with it.”

   “When you've got your theme–let the concept incubate. Walk around with it, sleep on it.”

noun

1. A preparation, or material, that has been incubated.