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germ

Pronunciation: /d͡ʒɜːm/

The English word “germ” has 7 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. The embryo of a seed, especially of a seed used as a cereal or grain. See Wikipedia article on cereal germ.
  2. The small mass of cells from which a part of an organism develops, or a macroscopic but immature form of that part; a bud.
  3. A pathogen: a pathogenic microorganism, such as a bacterium or virus.
  4. The origin or earliest version of an idea or project.
  5. An equivalence class that includes a specified function defined in an open neighborhood.

verb

  1. To germinate.
  2. To grow, as if parasitic.

Etymology

From Middle French germe, from Latin germen (“bud, seed, embryo”). Doublet of germen.

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.