Definitions

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

  • noun A male gamete, such as a spermatozoon of an animal or one of the cells or nuclei produced by a pollen grain of a plant.
  • noun Semen.
  • noun A substance, such as spermaceti, obtained from a sperm whale.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The male seed of any kind, as the semen or seminal fluid of the higher vertebrates, the male spawn or milt of the lower vertebrates, or the seminal elements of any animal, containing the male germs, or spermatozoa.
  • noun Same as spermaceti.
  • noun A sperm-whale.
  • noun Sperm-oil.

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

  • noun (Physiol.) The male fecundating fluid; semen. See semen.
  • noun (Physiol.) one of the cells from which the spermatozoids are developed.
  • noun (Biol.) Same as Spermosphere.
  • noun Spermaceti.
  • noun a fatty oil found as a liquid, with spermaceti, in the head cavities of the sperm whale.
  • noun (Zoöl.) See in the Vocabulary.

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

  • noun uncountable Semen; the generative substance of male animals.
  • noun cytology The reproductive cell or gamete of the male; a spermatozoon.
  • noun chemistry sperm oil; whale oil from a sperm whale; spermaceti.

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

  • noun the male reproductive cell; the male gamete

Etymologies

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

[Middle English sperme, semen, from Old French esperme, from Late Latin sperma, from Greek; see sper- in Indo-European roots.]

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

[Short for spermaceti.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle French sperme, from Latin sperma, from Ancient Greek σπέρμα (sperma, "seed, semen").

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Examples

  • Women can easily create single-parent households without men by using a sperm donor, in a state that recognizes the legal status of ’sperm donor’.

    More on “pro-life” and feminism 2004

  • I paused for a whisker of a moment, amazed that I was even uttering the word sperm to a seventy-seven-year-old man who could be my grandfather.

    Last Lullaby Denise Hamilton 2004

  • I paused for a whisker of a moment, amazed that I was even uttering the word sperm to a seventy-seven-year-old man who could be my grandfather.

    Last Lullaby Denise Hamilton 2004

  • I never got the "you're dead but your sperm is alive" thing either.

    Stephenie Meyer - Breaking Dawn (Book Review) 2009

  • LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD 4.0 was straight NutraSweet - dummies might be easily fooled, but anyone with have a brain can tell it's not the real thing, and your sperm is all retarded after extended exposure to it. oh the humanity

    Bruce Willis Says Die Hard 5 Could Shoot Next Year? Story Would Go Worldwide | /Film 2010

  • Researchers at Newcastle University and the NorthEast England Stem Cell Institute say they used a new technique to derive what they described as sperm cells from embryonic stem cells.

    unknown title 2009

  • Yet, erectile dysfunction medication ads blare regularly from CNN and sperm is discussed at length on CBS.

    Christine Bronstein: Why Are Family Jewels Just for Men? Christine Bronstein 2010

  • For males, this includes the epidydimis (the tubes next to the testicle — it's where your sperm is stored) and the urethra (the tube that carries your urine).

    Gonorrhea 2010

  • Yet, erectile dysfunction medication ads blare regularly from CNN and sperm is discussed at length on CBS.

    Christine Bronstein: Why Are Family Jewels Just for Men? Christine Bronstein 2010

  • For males, this includes the epidydimis (the tubes next to the testicle — it's where your sperm is stored) and the urethra (the tube that carries your urine).

    Chlamydia 2010

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