seed

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A ripened plant ovule containing an embryo.
2. n. A propagative part of a plant, as a tuber or spore.
3. n. Seeds considered as a group.
4. n. The seed-bearing stage of a plant.
5. n. Something that resembles a seed, as a tiny bubble in a piece of glass.
6. n. A small amount of material used to start a chemical reaction.
7. n. A small crystal used to start a crystallization process.
8. n. Medicine A form of a radioactive isotope that is used to localize and concentrate the amount of radiation administered to a body site, such as a tumor.
9. n. A source or beginning; a germ.
10. n. Offspring; progeny.
11. n. Family stock; ancestry.
12. n. Sperm; semen.
13. n. A seed oyster or oysters; spat.
14. n. Sports A player who has been seeded for a tournament, often at a given rank: a top seed.
15. v. To plant seeds in (land, for example); sow.
16. v. To plant in soil.
17. v. To remove the seeds from (fruit).
18. v. To furnish with something that grows or stimulates growth or development: a bioreactor seeded with bacteria.
19. v. Medicine To cause (cells or a tumor, for example) to grow or multiply.
20. v. Meteorology To sprinkle (a cloud) with particles, as of silver iodide, in order to disperse it or to produce precipitation.
21. v. Sports To arrange (the drawing for positions in a tournament) so that the more skilled contestants meet in the later rounds.
22. v. Sports To rank (a contestant) in this way.
23. v. To help (a business, for example) in its early development.
24. v. To sow seed.
25. v. To go to seed.
26. v. Medicine To grow or multiply, as a tumor.
27. adj. Set aside for planting a new crop: seed corn; seed wheat.
28. adj. Intended to help in early stages: provided seed capital for a fledgling business.
29. idiom. go To pass into the seed-bearing stage.
30. idiom. go To become weak or devitalized; deteriorate: The old neighborhood has gone to seed.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The fertilized and matured ovule of the higher or flowering plants. It is a body within the pericarp or seed-vessel, containing an organized embryo, or nucleus, which, on being placed under favorable circumstances, develops into an individual similar to that from which it came. The reproductive bodies of the lower or flowerless plants (cryptogams) differ in their mode of germination and in other ways, and are not called true seeds, but spores. (See spore.) The seed-coats are those of the ovule—two, or rarely only one. The outer, answering to the primine, is the more firm and is not rarely crustaceous in texture, and takes the name of testa (also spermoderm and episperm). The inner, answering to the secundine, is called tegmen (sometimes endopleura); when present, it is always conformed to the nucleus, and is thin or soft and delicate in texture. The seed-stalk or podosperm, when there is one, is the pedicel or attachment of the seed to the placenta, and answers to the funiculus of the ovule. The chalaza, raphe, and hilum of the ovule retain the same names in the seed. The foramen of the ovule is called the micropyle in the seed. The terms which denote the position of the ovule, such as orthotropous, anatropous, amphitropous, etc., also apply equally to the resulting seed. The nucleus may consist of the embryo alone, or of the embryo and the albumen, which is the nourishing substance upon which the developing plant is to feed until it is capable of maintaining itself. See the various terms, and cuts under anatropous, campylotropul, Cruciferæ, ovary, and plumule.
2. n. The male fecundating fluid; semen; sperm or milt, as of fish; spat, as of oysters: without a plural.
3. n. Very young animals, as oysters.
4. n. Progeny; offspring; children; descendants: as. the seed of Abraham; the seed of David. In this sense, chiefly scriptural, the word is applied to one person or to any number collectively, and is not used in the plural.
5. n. Race; generation; birth.
6. n. That from which anything springs: firstprinciple; origin: often in the plural: as, the seeds of virtue or vice; to sow the seeds of discord.
7. n. Same as red-seed: a fishermen's term.
8. n. The egg or eggs of the commercial silkwormmoth, Sericaria mori.
9. n. In glass-making, one of the small bubbles which form in imperfectly fused glass, and which, when the glass is worked, assume elongated or ovoid forms, resembling the shapes of some seeds.
10. To go to seed; produce seed; grow to maturity: as, plants that will not seed in a cold climate.
11. To sow; plant; sprinkle or supply with or as with seed.
12. To cover with something thinly scattered; ornament with small and separate figures.
13. To graft.
14. In lard-rendering and -refining, to granulate by slow cooling, or cooling without stirring, as stearin in lard.
15. n. The larvæ of the lac-insect.
16. n. In sugar manufacturing, crystals of sugar placed in concentrated syrup to serve as starting-points for fresh crystallization.
17. In sugar manufacturing, to start the process of crystallization in (concentrated syrup) by placing crystals of sugar, from a previous step in the process, to serve as seed or starting-points.

Wiktionary

1. adj. Held in reserve for future growth.
2. adj. First. The initial state, condition or position of a changing, growing or developing process; the ultimate precursor in a defined chain of precursors.
3. adj. A precursor, especially in a process without a defined initial state.
4. n. A fertilized grain, initially encased in a fruit, which may grow into a mature plant.
5. n. A fertilized ovule, containing an embryonic plant.
6. n. An amount of fertilized grain that cannot be readily counted.
7. n. Semen.
8. n. A precursor.
9. n. The initial state, condition or position of a changing, growing or developing process; the ultimate precusor in a defined chain of precusors.
10. n. The initial position of a competitor or team in a tournament. (seed position)
11. n. The team with the best regular season record receives the top seed in the conference tournament.
12. n. The competitor or team occupying a given seed. (seed position)
13. n. The rookie was a surprising top seed.
14. n. Initialization state of a pseudorandom number generator (PRNG). (seed number)
15. n. If you use the same seed you will get exactly the same pattern of numbers.
16. n. Commercial message in a creative format placed on relevant sites on the Internet. (seed idea or seed message)
17. n. The latest seed has attracted a lot of users in our online community.
18. n. Offspring, descendants, progeny.
19. v. To plant or sow an area with seeds.
20. v. To start; to provide, assign or determine the initial resources for, position of, state of.
21. v. To allocate a seeding to a competitor.
22. v. To be able to compete (especially in a quarter-final/semi-final/final).

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A ripened ovule, consisting of an embryo with one or more integuments, or coverings; By germination it produces a new plant.
2. n. Any small seedlike fruit, though it may consist of a pericarp, or even a calyx, as well as the seed proper
3. n. The generative fluid of the male; semen; sperm; -- not used in the plural.
4. n. That from which anything springs; first principle; original; source.
5. n. The principle of production.
6. n. Progeny; offspring; children; descendants.
7. n. Race; generation; birth.
8. v. To sow seed.
9. v. To shed the seed.
10. v. To grow to maturity, and to produce seed.
11. v. To sprinkle with seed; to plant seeds in; to sow.
12. v. To cover thinly with something scattered; to ornament with seedlike decorations.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. anything that provides inspiration for later work
2. v. go to seed; shed seeds
3. v. distribute (players or teams) so that outstanding teams or players will not meet in the early rounds
4. v. remove the seeds from
5. n. the thick white fluid containing spermatozoa that is ejaculated by the male genital tract
6. n. a small hard fruit
7. v. sprinkle with silver iodide particles to disperse and cause rain
8. n. a mature fertilized plant ovule consisting of an embryo and its food source and having a protective coat or testa
9. v. help (an enterprise) in its early stages of development by providing seed money
10. v. place (seeds) in or on the ground for future growth
11. v. inoculate with microorganisms
12. n. one of the outstanding players in a tournament
13. v. bear seeds