Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To cause to sprout or grow.
  • intransitive verb To begin to sprout or grow.
  • intransitive verb To come into existence.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To act as a germ; begin to undergo development toward a more complete form or state; form or be formed into an embryo, as an impregnated ovum.
  • Specifically, to sprout; bud; shoot; begin to vegetate or grow, as a plant or its seed.
  • To cause to sprout; put forth; produce.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To cause to sprout.
  • intransitive verb To sprout; to bud; to shoot; to begin to vegetate, as a plant or its seed; to begin to develop, as a germ.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To sprout or produce buds.
  • verb To cause to grow.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb work out
  • verb cause to grow or sprout
  • verb produce buds, branches, or germinate

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin germināre, germināt-, to sprout, from germen, germin-, sprout, bud; see genə- in Indo-European roots.]

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word germinate.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • It takes some time for mushroom spores to germinate, whereas other fungi such as green moulds germinate and spread much faster.

    January 24, 2011