Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

incubator

[ˈɪn.kjuːˌbeɪ.ɾɚ]

Word Rarity Rare

Frequency: 3.13 in modern English

Syllables: in-cu-ba-tor
IPA: [ˈɪn.kjuːˌbeɪ.ɾɚ]

13

Scrabble Score

9

Letters

4

Syllables

9

Unique Chars

Meaning

noun

Any apparatus used to maintain environmental conditions suitable for a reaction.

noun

An apparatus used to maintain environmental conditions suitable for a newborn baby.

noun

An apparatus used to maintain environmental conditions suitable for the hatching of eggs.

noun

A place to maintain the culturing of bacteria at a steady temperature.

noun

A support programme for the development of entrepreneurial companies.

Example Sentences

"So the question that is commonly asked is, why put a media incubator in a media desert and have it managed by a civil servant? This gets to the heart of the institutional support problem in Wales."
"Tech City is very big on "incubators" – places where startups are supposed to grow out of a collection of adjacent desks in a huge barracks of other adjacent desks – and on luring big firms to the East End of London."

Etymology

From incubate + -or.

Regional Pronunciation

American English: [ˈɪn.kjuːˌbeɪ.ɾɚ]
British English: /ˈɪn.kjuːˌbeɪ.tə(ɹ)/

Inflected Forms

incubators (plural)

Derived Forms

bioincubator microincubator

Frequently Paired Words

incubate incubation incubative

Synonyms

brooder

Rhymes With

later greater creator narrator traitor translator dictator waiter cater crater curator spectator

Questions

How do you pronounce incubator?: The recorded pronunciation is [ˈɪn.kjuːˌbeɪ.ɾɚ].
What does incubator mean?: Any apparatus used to maintain environmental conditions suitable for a reaction.
Where does incubator come from?: From incubate + -or.

How to pronounce incubator

Open the pronunciation page — Open the Speakur entry for “incubator”.
Read the phonetic spelling — Read the IPA spelling ([ˈɪn.kjuːˌbeɪ.ɾɚ]) so you know which sounds to aim for.
Play the audio — Click Play to hear reference audio for “incubator”.
Repeat and practice — Say “incubator” aloud, matching stress and vowels until it feels natural.