gravitate
verb
Rose Friedman
Did you know?
The force is strong in the family of words descended from the Latin adjective gravis, meaning “heavy”: gravitation has it, graviton has it, and gravitate has it, too. That force is gravity (gravity being another gravis descendent), a fundamental physical force that is responsible for bringing us literally back down to earth (or Tattooine, as it were). But you don’t have to be a full-fledged linguistic Jedi, young padawan, to know that gravity, like its Latin ancestor, also has figurative meanings, as does gravitate. When it first landed in the 17th century, gravitate meant “to apply pressure or weight,” and later it maintained its connection to literal gravity with a sense (still in use today) meaning “to move under the effect of gravitation.” It then, however, acquired a more general sense of “to move toward something” (such as toward a specific location), and finally a metaphorical sense of “to be attracted,” as in, “when choosing movies to watch she often gravitates toward space operas.”
Examples of gravitate in a Sentence
Adrian Bridgwater, Forbes.com, 17 May 2025
In the years since, some startup founders have gravitated away from digital entertainment toward building actual, physical things.
—Emma Green, New Yorker, 16 May 2025
An emboldened Trump is instead gravitating toward and seeking to emulate the absolute rulers he’s long praised and found kinship with.
—Bloomberg, Mercury News, 16 May 2025
Drew seems to gravitate towards that in a lot of designs, creating a sort of visual color tension that amplifies the neutrals around it.
—Eleni N. Gage, Better Homes & Gardens, 14 May 2025
See All Example Sentences for gravitate
Cite this Entry
“Gravitate.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gravitate. Accessed 29 May. 2025.
Copy CitationKids Definition
gravitate
verb
Medical Definition
gravitate
intransitive verb
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