germinate

English

Etymology

Latin germinātus, past participle of germināre (“to sprout”).

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /ˈd͡ʒɜː(ɹ)mɪneɪt/
Audio (Southern England) (file)

Verb

germinate (third-person singular simple present germinates, present participle germinating, simple past and past participle germinated)

(intransitive, botany, horticulture) Of a seed, to begin to grow, to sprout roots and leaves.
- 1631, Francis [Bacon], “(please specify |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. , 3rd edition, London: William Rawley; rinted by J H for William Lee , →OCLC:
  the Chalcites, which hath a Spirit that will put forth and germinate
- 2014 April 5, “Quite interesting: A quietly intriguing column from the brains behind QI, the BBC quiz show. This week; QI orchids you not”, in The Daily Telegraph (Weekend), page W22:
  Orchids rely on fungi to reproduce. Their tiny seeds don't have any on-board nutrients (like beans and apples) and will not germinate until they are infected by a symbiotic fungus which supplies them with food. Known as a protocorm, this tiny orchid-fungus ball grows, turns green and eventually starts to photosynthesise.
- 2014 December 23, Olivia Judson, “The hemiparasite season ”, in The New York Times‎, archived from the original on 23 December 2014:
  […] The flesh [of the mistletoe berry] is sticky, and forms strings and ribbons between my thumb and forefinger. For the mistletoe, this viscous goop – and by the way, viscous comes to English from viscum – is crucial. The stickiness means that, after eating the berries, birds often regurgitate the seeds and then wipe their bills on twigs – leading to the seeds' getting glued to the tree, where they can germinate and begin the cycle anew.
(transitive) To cause to grow; to produce.
- 1913, Robert Barr, chapter 5, in Lord Stranleigh Abroad‎:
  These were business hours, and a feeling of loneliness crept over him, perhaps germinated by his sight of the illustrated papers, and accentuated by an attempted perusal of them.