germenn.

1608 W. Shakespeare King Lear ix. 8 And thou all shaking thunder, smite flat The thicke Rotunditie of the world, cracke natures Mold, all Germains spill at once that make Ingratefull man. View more context for this quotation

1751 tr. N. A. Pluche Truth of Gospel I. 45 God has not granted him a reproductive Germen, since he did not, when he pre-ordained two Germina for the perpetuating of the Species of the Ass and the Horse, likewise prepare a third fit to perpetuate that of the Mule.

1782 W. Hayley Ess. Epic Poetry iv. 71 Art thou [sc. Nature] the Niggard they pretend thou art, A grudging Parent with a Stepdame's heart; And dost thou shed, with rare, reluctant toil, Bright Fancy's germins in the mental soil?

1824 J. Galt Rothelan II. v. vi. 294 Many thought and feared some new evil was confusing the germins of nature.

1884 H. Jennings Phallicism xiii. 135 A continual assertion of the Rosicrucians is, that the philosopher's fire is to be found in everything; that the germen of the lapis philosophorum abides in everything.

1916 A. E. Bailey Gospel in Art xxii. 410 Love is the only power that never faileth, that melts down the barriers of past sin, and floods with the sunshine of new life the hidden germens of character.

1954 Bull. Atomic Scientists Apr. 140/2 As the initial germen of superior animals was at the same time the generator of all the somatic cells of the body and also of the new germen, each generation of professors creates intellectually the individuals destined to form the social body and also a new generation of future teachers.

1990 A. S. Byatt Possession (1991) xi. 225 Of ancient Egypt's fabled Mundane Egg,..From which sprang Eros, all in feathered light Who fecundated Chaos, wherein formed Germens of all that lives and moves on Earth.

1752 Philos. Trans. 1751–2 (Royal Soc.) 47 175 The pistillum and its appertances..by Linnaeus, with his accustomed accuracy, are divided into three parts; viz. the germen, stylus, and stigma.]

1759 B. Stillingfleet in tr. Misc. Tracts Nat. Hist. p. xxviii Upon opening the flower leaves there will appear in the very center, at the bottom, an oblong thickish substance... This contains the seeds, and is called the..germen or germ.

1807 J. E. Smith Introd. Physiol. & Systematical Bot. 274 The Germen appears under a variety of shapes and sizes. It is of great moment..to observe whether it be superior, that is, above the bases of the calyx and corolla..or inferior, below them.

1877 C. Darwin Different Forms Flowers iii. 83 The germens of these 12 flowers all swelled, and ultimately six fine capsules and two poor capsules were produced.

1912 L. C. Miall Early Naturalists viii. 348 Linnæus adopted or introduced the physiological division of the pistil into ovary or germen, style and stigma.

1794 Impartial Hist. Revol. in France x. 392 You did nothing to stifle those germens of counter-revolution, till the moment when Saillant's conspiracy became manifestly notorious.

a1813 J. H. St. J. de Crèvecoeur More Lett. from Amer. Farmer (1995) 230 Will it be Entertaining to You who is fonder To Trace things as near their origin as possible to consider those primitives tho' Rude scenes, wherein are display'd the True Germen of Internal Politicks the effects of which have been so diffusive & reachfull.

1814 H. F. Cary tr. Dante Vision II. xvii. 100 Love is germin [It. sementa] of each virtue in ye.

1840 J. J. Forrester Prize-essay on Portugal (1854) iv. 116 Let not ill-devised regulations or erroneous principles of administration destroy and suffocate this rich germen of national wealth.

1854 Friends Rev. 1 Apr. 462/2 The disposition to pry into the how and the why, is sometimes seen from the very cradle; and is always to be regarded as an auspicious token: it being in fact the germen of all future improvement.

1900 E. C. Reed tr. R. Egaña Tacna & Arica Question vi. 29 There had never been, nor ever could be, any territorial dispute, the germen of nearly all South American difficulties.

2007 G. Garnett Conquered Eng. ii. 47 The germen of his causa is set out in his preface.