▪ I. ˈgravitate, a. nonce-wd.
[f. L. gravit-ās + -ate.]
Endowed with gravity.
| 1827 Coleridge Notes & Lect. on Shakespeare (1849) II. 157 The particles themselves must have an interior and gravitate being. |
▪ II. gravitate, v.
(ˈgrævɪteɪt)
[f. mod.L. gravitāt-, ppl. stem of gravitāre, f. gravis heavy, gravitās weight, gravity. Cf. 17th c. F. graviter.]
† 1. intr. To exert weight or pressure; to press upon (on); also of heavy bodies, to move or tend to move downward by their own weight. Obs.
In early natural philosophy, bodies classed as heavy were said to gravitate, and bodies classed as light to levitate, in consequence of their tendency to ‘seek their own place’.
| 1644 Digby Nat. Bodies (1645) 112 The weights..do not gravitate or weigh so much..when the aire is thick and foggy. 1660 Boyle New Exp. Phys. Mech. xvii. 110 The one gravitating, the other pressing with equal force upon the subjacent Mercury. 1661 ― Spring of Air i. iv. (1682) 9 When the lower finger is removed then the Cylinder of Mercury, which before gravitated upon the Finger comes to gravitate upon the restagnant Mercury. 1664 Power Exp. Philos. ii. 107 By which [experiment] it..appears, that water does gravitate in its own Sphære (as they phrase it). 1678 Hobbes Decam. Wks. 1845 VII. 140 Water does not gravitate on any part of itself beneath it. 1782 A. Monro Compar. Anat. (ed. 3) 29 The lymph..gravitating upon the inferior part of the ventricles may..elongate and produce them. 1788 Reid Aristotle's Log. vi. ii. 144 In the ancient philosophy..Many things were assumed under that character without a just title [e.g.]..that bodies do not gravitate in their proper place. 1808 Bentham Sc. Reform 38 The..burthen of patronage, which, by Right Honourable persons in your Lordship's..station, has always been felt to gravitate with so severe a pressure. [1822 J. Imison Sci. & Art I. 135 As all parts of the atmosphere gravitate, or press upon each other.] |
† b. trans. To weigh down, oppress. Obs.
| 1754 H. P. Hiberniad i. 6 People..condemned to Tracts of Land, and gravitated by an Atmosphere baneful to them. |
2. intr. To be affected by gravitation; to move or tend to move by the force of gravity towards a body, as the planets of the solar system towards the sun, and bodies near and on the earth towards its centre, etc.
| 1692 Bentley Boyle Lect. 225 The sun, moon, and all the planets do reciprocally gravitate one toward another. 1712 Blackmore Creation ii. (1736) 57 That matter is with active force endu'd, That all its parts magnetic pow'r exert, And to each other gravitate. 1726 tr. Gregory's Astron. I. 99 The Secondary Planets of Jupiter gravitate towards Jupiter..and both the Primary and Secondary Planets gravitate towards the Sun. 1739 tr. Algarotti's Newton's Philos. (1742) II. 41 All Bodies here below gravitate, and if left to themselves descend. 1822 J. Imison Sci. & Art I. 16 As all bodies gravitate towards the earth, so does the earth gravitate towards all bodies. 1834 M. Somerville Connect. Phys. Sci. i. (1849) 7 The satellites also gravitate to their primaries. 1868 Lockyer Guillemin's Heavens (ed. 3) 436 Systems of bodies which gravitate round a central body. |
b. To sink or fall by, or as by, gravitation: to tend to reach a low level; to settle down (into a place). lit. and fig.
| 1823 Chalmers Posth. Wks. (1849) VI. 410 The soul sinks and gravitates again to the dust of its own kindred earthliness. 1847–9 Helps Friends in C. (1851) I. 31 They gravitate into their old way very soon. 1851 Robertson Serm. Ser. ii. xi. (1864) 143 The soul gravitates downward beneath its burden. 1856 Froude Hist. Eng. I. 142 Thus were the various parties in the vast struggle which was about to commence gravitating into their places. 1879 Rep. St. George's Hosp. IX. 400 The intestinal contents..had gravitated behind the ascending colon to the region of the cæcum. |
c. trans. To cause to descend or sink by gravitation; spec. in Diamond-digging, to manipulate (the gravel) after washing, so that the heavy stones sink to the bottom (in quot. 1894 absol.).
| 1894 Pop. Sci. Monthly XLV. 473 These are sufficiently near the shore to be used to dig materials from to be gravitated down to the dam. 1894 Graphic 4 Aug. 129/2 [In diamond-digging] there is the gravitating machine, which has the same effect on the gravel as gravitating by hand. |
3. transf. and fig. (intr.) To move or tend to move towards a certain point or object as a natural goal or destination; to be strongly attracted (to some centre of influence).
| 1673 Marvell Reh. Transp. ii. 187 A Lecture..upon the Centers of Knowledge and Ignorance, and how and when they Gravitate and Levitate. 1776 Adam Smith W.N. i. vii. (1869) I. 62 The market price..is continually gravitating towards the natural price. 1777 Burke Let. to Fox Wks. IX. 154 We must gravitate towards them, if we would keep in the same system, or expect that they should approach towards us. 1837 Sir R. Peel in Croker Papers (1884) 5 July, A King..is the centre towards which all business gravitates. 1865 Merivale Rom. Emp. VIII. lxvi. 245 Rome..was the place to which the imperial pilgrimages gravitated. 1873 Burton Hist. Scot. VI. lxv. 26 The Irish no longer, as of old, gravitated to Scotland. 1875 Merivale Gen. Hist. Rome lxxiv. (1877) 616 The common feeling of mankind was slowly gravitating towards the new religion. |
Hence ˈgravitated ppl. a. Also ˈgravitater, a workman who ‘gravitates’.
| 1727 Bailey vol. II, Gravitated, weighed, poised. 1822–34 Good's Study Med. (ed. 4) II. 469 The lungs were of a pale grey, without any marks of gravitated blood. 1894 Graphic 4 Aug. 129/2 [Diamond-digging] Then the washing begins. A bucketful of gravel is put into a fine-mesh sieve,..and a ‘nigger’ takes it,..shaking it so as to wash the gravel. He then passes it to the ‘gravitater’..the gravitater, by dexterous manipulation, causing all the heavy stones to sink to the bottom and come together in the centre. |