nesting
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Related to nesting: nesting place
nesting Japanese figures
nest
(nĕst)n.
1.
a. A structure or shelter made or used by a bird to hold its eggs during incubation and to house its young until fledged.
b. A structure or shelter in which other animals, such as reptiles, fish, or insects, deposit their eggs or tend their young.
c. A structure or complex built by ants, termites, or other social animals to house a colony.
d. A number of insects, birds, or other animals occupying a nest: attacked by a nest of hornets.
2. A place affording snug refuge or lodging; a home.
3.
a. A place or environment that fosters rapid growth or development, especially of something undesirable; a hotbed: a nest of criminal activity.
b. Those who occupy or frequent such a place or environment.
4.
a. A set of objects of graduated size that can be stacked together, each fitting within the one immediately larger: a nest of tables.
b. A cluster of similar things.
5. A group of weapons in a prepared position: a machine-gun nest.
v. nest·ed, nest·ing, nests
v.intr.
1. To build or occupy a nest.
2. To create and settle into a warm and secure refuge.
3. To hunt for birds' nests, especially in order to collect the eggs.
4. To fit one inside another.
v.tr.
1. To place in or as if in a nest.
2. To put snugly together or inside one another: to nest boxes.
[Middle English, from Old English; see sed- in Indo-European roots.]
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
nesting
(ˈnɛstɪŋ)n
(Psychology) the tendency to arrange one's immediate surroundings, such as a work station, to create a place where one feels secure, comfortable, or in control
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