Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Of, relating to, containing, or conveying semen or seed.
- adj. Of, relating to, or having the power to originate; creative.
- adj. Highly influential in an original way; constituting or providing a basis for further development: a seminal idea in the creation of a new theory.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Of or pertaining to seed or semen or the elements of reproduction.
- 2. Containing the seed or elements of reproduction; germinal: as, seminal principles.
- Rudimentary; original; primary.
- n. A seed; a seminal or rudimentary element.
Wiktionary
- adj. Of or relating to seed or semen.
- adj. Creative or having the power to originate.
- adj. Highly influential, especially in some original way, and providing a basis for future development or research.
- n. obsolete A seed.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Pertaining to, containing, or consisting of, seed or semen.
- adj. Contained in seed.
- adj. Holding the first place in a series of developed results or consequents; serving as a source, or first principle; giving rise to related ideas or results; germinal; radical; primary; original.
- n. obsolete A seed.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. containing seeds of later development
- adj. pertaining to or containing or consisting of semen
Etymologies
- From Latin sēminālis. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, from Old French, from Latin sēminālis, from sēmen, sēmin-, seed; see semen. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“The duct of the seminal vesicle joins the _vas deferens_ of the same side (both functionally and embryologically the seminal vesicle is no more than a diverticulum of the vas deferens); passing on under the name of the _common seminal_ or _ejaculatory duct_, the canal opens into the prostatic portion of the urethra (the orifices of the two common seminal ducts are in the folds of mucous membrane forming the right and left lateral margins of the _prostatic utricle_ or _uterus masculinus_).”
“This two-disc compilation is also the first to cover both the Warner Brothers years and R.E.M.'s start on I.R.S. records, which produced the "Chronic Town" EP and "Murmur," works for which the word "seminal" should have been invented.”
“Studios, and a move to Los Angeles in 1987 that landed him at Samuel Goldwyn, which he calls the seminal job of his career because it taught him about film distribution, marketing, and publicity.”
“She also referenced what she called a seminal study done at Sears a few years ago that found that engaged customer-service employees drive increased profits.”
“Ever since he called my seminal work Prefatory Remarks Towards a Prolegomena to Any Future Study of the Philosophy of Philosophy a “jejune and meretricious farrago composed of equal parts nonsense, self-contradiction, okra and cumin,” I'd had it in for the guy.”
“Here 'spunky' is slang for 'covered in seminal fluid'.”
Princess Mahalanobis: Blog Baby, Bryan Caplan | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
“Historically, Daumier makes the word seminal an understatement; his great-great-grandsons embellish our daily op-ed pages, and the Daumier estate still holds the patent on Jules Feiffer. ”
“Consider the magnitude of Mr. Brown's achievement: His capture of Ted Kennedy's Senate seat was based on an unambiguous promise to fight the march toward universal health care in the United States, which Kennedy himself described as the seminal cause of his life.”
“Nasty nasty tunes that veered far too close to being a few notes away from Andrew Lloyd-Webber's seminal work 'The Phantom of the Opera' (I use the word seminal because, yes, it was a load of old wank).”
“RE describing Germaine's work as 'seminal' - don't you mean 'ovarian'?”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘seminal’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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Iaan
dirigisme, dystopia, cacotopia, ex ante, veritable, indefatigable, curmudgeon, desultory, antediluvian, transmogrify, pendent, elongate and 269 more...
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EN-HU - important words for a HU inte...
Words only (I left out the expressions) from Geza Kerenyi's EN-HU interpreters' dictionary. Most of them pose some difficulty when interpreted between HU and EN in either or both directions.
abalone, abrasive, abstractionist, abstruse, abysmal, academia, accessibility, accessible, acclimate, accolade, accompanist, achiever and 1469 more...
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MUSIC - jazz
funky, pedal, bebop, rap, mix, sub, mid, rag, ECM, bpm, bop, Afro and 437 more...
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Words build meanings from origins( et...
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 2046 more...
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Philosophic , etymology
every major discipline has uniquely developed esoteric nomenclature to facilitate interdisciplinary dissemination
quale , qualia, elegy, tacet, lexicon, annunciate, caste, eros, contrive, purlicue, irony, venacular, dilapidate and 567 more...
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Old words
recalcitrant, grok, Hiatus, shanghai, pervade, diffuse, tempestuous, incorrigible, daunt, cull, Erudite, Assuage and 35 more...
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GRE list #4
runic, sagacious, salacious, salient, salutary, sanctimony, sanguine, satiate, saturnine, seine, seminal, sidereal and 103 more...
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Words from Moby Dick
frigate, presumptuous, genteel, succor, hearthstone, gentry, factitious, bilious, insurgent, portent, enervate, genuflect and 303 more...
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bkerr's Words
wyrd, absinthe, homunculus, zorkmid, informon, decider, diachronic, frak, hwæt, feldercarb, yawp, dogfooding and 540 more...
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GRE Words
orotund, mendacious, inimical, foment, contumacious, abrogate, arrogate, syncretism, abate, abdication, aberration, abeyance and 123 more...
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Appellations
States of ment.
off kilter, fervent, nonchalant, exuberant, turbid, verbose, eloquent, vicarious, gallivant, orotund, amalgamate, accentuate and 285 more...
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Faves
nepenthe, cupidity, anodyne, obdurate, doleful, obsolescent, quale, piquant, velleity, inchoate, disport, facile and 366 more...
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BonMots
assiduous, progeny, hegemony, nascent, reticent, ephemera, zeitgeist, recalcitrant, copious, corporeal, cacaphonous, obstreperous and 108 more...
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ADW1
obdurate, obstinate, behest, injunction, enjoin, circumspect, ensconce, discursive, lugubrious, doleful, somber, ken and 2476 more...
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Infinite Jest
Words to remember from DFW's "Infinite Jest"
wen, matriculation, circumflex, lapidary, effete, sotto, hypertrophy, presbyopic, ideogram, pinion, parquet, nelson and 152 more...
Tweets
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