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gestation

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Medical, Legal, Wikipedia 0.01 sec.
gestation
a. the development of the embryo of a viviparous mammal, between conception and birth: about 266 days in humans, 624 days in elephants, and 63 days in cats
b. (as modifier): gestation period


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The sperm whale, as with all other species of the Leviathan, but unlike most other fish, breeds indifferently at all seasons; after a gestation which may probably be set down at nine months, producing but one at a time; though in some few known instances giving birth to an Esau and Jacob: -- a contingency provided for in suckling by two teats, curiously situated, one on each side of the anus; but the breasts themselves extend upwards from that.
Moby Dick LXVIII-CXXXIV by Melville, Herman View in context
All the facts of the animal economy, sex, nutriment, gestation, birth, growth, are symbols of the passage of the world into the soul of man, to suffer there a change and reappear a new and higher fact.
Essays, Second Series by Emerson, Ralph Waldo View in context
 
 
 
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