estivate (ES-tuh-vayt) verb, also aestivate

   To pass the summer in a dormant state.

[From Latin aestivatus, past participle of aestivare, to reside during the
summer.]

   "An occasional Texas tortoise ambles through this unique subtropical
   forest, and spiral-shaped `Rabdotus' snails estivate through the warm
   summer months on the trunks of the trees."
   John Tveten and Gloria Tveten, Birds And Butterflies Among Amenities of
   New Valley Inn, The Houston Chronicle, Mar 19, 1999.

   "If the self's immutability
   can bear a hazy long hiatus,
   estivate, vanish, die - and stay the same --
   what were the months and years of pain?"
   Eric Colburn, The Long Poem, Literary Review (Madison, N.J.), Spring 2001.

This week's theme: less-known counterparts of everyday words.
Hibernate is the winter equivalent of today's word.

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There is a pleasure sure, in being mad, which none but madmen know. -John
Dryden, poet and dramatist (1631-1700)

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Pronunciation:
http://wordsmith.org/words/estivate.wav
http://wordsmith.org/words/estivate.ram