germinal

• IPA^(key): /ˈdʒɜː(ɹ)mɪnəl/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

germinal (comparative more germinal, superlative most germinal)

1. Relating to spring
2. Pertaining, similar, or belonging to a germ.
3. (botany) Relating to a plant ovary.
4. (figuratively) Serving as a point of origin; formative.

   My upbringing was the germinal idea behind the opera.

5. (figuratively) Highly influential; seminal.

   This case was germinal to development of the theory of joint participation.

In sense “highly influential”, primarily used as a consciously feminist alternative to male seminal (germ (“egg”) vs. semen).

• (relating to spring): vernal
• (relating to seed): seminal
• (influential): seminal

• “germinal”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “germinal”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

• Malinger, Glanmire, meangirl, mean girl, maligner, malinger, Malingre

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic) [ʒər.miˈnal]
• IPA^(key): (Valencia) [d͡ʒeɾ.miˈnal]

germinal m or f (masculine and feminine plural germinals)

1. germinal

germinal m (plural germinals)

1. (historical) Germinal (the month)

From Latin germin- (“sprout, bud”) + -al.

• IPA^(key): /ʒɛʁ.mi.nal/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -al
• Homophones: germinale, germinales, germinals

germinal (feminine germinale, masculine plural germinaux, feminine plural germinales)

1. germinal

germinal m (plural germinals)

1. (historical) Germinal (the seventh month of the French Republican Calendar)

• (French Republican Calendar months) mois du calendrier républicain; vendémiaire, brumaire, frimaire, nivôse, pluviôse, ventôse, germinal, floréal, prairial, messidor, thermidor, fructidor ^{(Category: fr:Months)}

• “germinal”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

• malingre

Borrowed from French germinal.

germinal m (uncountable)

1. Germinal

• IPA^(key): /xeɾmiˈnal/ [xeɾ.miˈnal]
• Rhymes: -al
• Syllabification: ger‧mi‧nal

germinal m or f (masculine and feminine plural germinales)

1. germinal

germinal m (plural germinales)

1. Germinal

• “germinal”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 10 December 2024