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
Jordan Salama, The New Yorker, 6 Jan. 2025
When the band formed in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, in 1965, its members, many of them still in high school, gravitated toward the sound of the Beatles and the Hollies.
—Joseph Hudak, Rolling Stone, 5 Jan. 2025
Keep an eye on Nobody Wants This in Comedy …
Historically, the Globes have gravitated toward new shows.
—Vulture Staff, Vulture, 5 Jan. 2025
Non-Yemeni cafes, meanwhile, have gravitated toward more ambitious food menus.
—Benjy Egel, Sacramento Bee, 3 Jan. 2025
See all Example Sentences for gravitate 
Dictionary Entries Near gravitate
Cite this Entry
“Gravitate.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gravitate. Accessed 18 Jan. 2025.
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gravitate
verb
Medical Definition
gravitate
intransitive verb
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