gravitating

Gravitating is the present participle of the verb gravitate. In its literal sense, to gravitate means to be attracted by gravity and to move toward a source of gravitational force. In physics, gravitation is the universal force by which masses attract each other; objects under gravity accelerate toward each other and follow trajectories such as free-fall or orbital paths. In everyday language, gravitating is often used figuratively to describe a tendency to be drawn toward a person, place, idea, or activity.

The term derives from gravity, from the Latin gravitas meaning heaviness or weight, and entered English with the sense of physical attraction before acquiring a broader metaphorical usage in the 17th–18th centuries.

Common collocations include gravitate toward (toward) something; in formal writing, the phrase is used to describe a nonphysical attraction or tendency, whereas literal gravitational motion is described with physical laws.