germinate
English
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin germinātus, perfect passive participle of germinō (“to sprout”), see -ate (verb-forming suffix).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈd͡ʒɜː(ɹ)mɪneɪt/
Audio (Southern England): (file)
Verb
germinate (third-person singular simple present germinates, present participle germinating, simple past and past participle germinated)
- (intransitive, botany, horticulture) Of a seed, to begin to grow, to sprout roots and leaves.
- 1627 (indicated as 1626), Francis [Bacon], “(please specify the page, or |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], London: […] William Rawley […]; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […], →OCLC:
- the Chalcites, which hath a Spirit that will put forth and germinate
- 1859, Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species:
- It would suffice to keep up the full number of a tree, which lived on an average for a thousand years, if a single seed were produced once in a thousand years, supposing that this seed were never destroyed, and could be ensured to germinate in a fitting place. So that in all cases, the average number of any animal or plant depends only indirectly on the number of its eggs or seeds.
- 2014 April 5, “Quite interesting: A quietly intriguing column from the brains behind QI, the BBC quiz show. This week; QI orchids you not”, in The Daily Telegraph (Weekend), page W22:
- Orchids rely on fungi to reproduce. Their tiny seeds don't have any on-board nutrients (like beans and apples) and will not germinate until they are infected by a symbiotic fungus which supplies them with food. Known as a protocorm, this tiny orchid-fungus ball grows, turns green and eventually starts to photosynthesise.
- 2014 December 23, Olivia Judson, “The hemiparasite season [print version: Under the hemiparasite, International New York Times, 24–25 December 2014, page 7]”, in The New York Times[1], archived from the original on 23 December 2014:
- […] The flesh [of the mistletoe berry] is sticky, and forms strings and ribbons between my thumb and forefinger. For the mistletoe, this viscous goop – and by the way, viscous comes to English from viscum – is crucial. The stickiness means that, after eating the berries, birds often regurgitate the seeds and then wipe their bills on twigs – leading to the seeds' getting glued to the tree, where they can germinate and begin the cycle anew.
- (transitive) To cause to grow; to produce.
- 1913, Robert Barr, chapter 5, in Lord Stranleigh Abroad[2]:
- These were business hours, and a feeling of loneliness crept over him, perhaps germinated by his sight of the illustrated papers, and accentuated by an attempted perusal of them.
Synonyms
- ackerspyre (Chester)
Derived terms
Related terms
Translations
sprout or produce buds
|
cause to grow
Anagrams
Italian
Verb
germinate
- inflection of germinare:
- second-person plural present indicative
- second-person plural imperative
Anagrams
Latin
Participle
germināte
- vocative masculine singular of germinātus
Spanish
Verb
germinate