1. Word finder
  2. Word definitions
  3. germ

Find the word definition

What is "germ"

Crossword clues for germ

germ
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
germ
noun
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
biological/germ warfare (=using dangerous bacteria or illnesses as a weapon)
▪ These bacteria might be used in biological warfare.
germ warfare
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ NOUN
cell
▪ When such changes are induced in the germ cells, they may be transmitted to descendants of the irradiated persons.
▪ Later, however, these germ cells undergo meiosis, to produce gametes.
▪ Then, with luck, some of the reintroduced, transformed cells will differentiate to form germ cells in that embryo.
▪ The adult worm is about 1 millimetre long and consists of only about 1000 body cells and thousands of germ cells.
▪ If this happens in a germ cell, it has the chance of being passed on to future generations.
▪ This pathway is fully operational in germ cells, where it has been implicated in both fertilization and early development.
line
▪ But germ lines can deteriorate and cause extinction of lineages.
▪ A sharp distinction between soma and germ line makes it possible to prevent acquired characters from being transmitted.
▪ The soma is mortal, but the germ line potentially immortal.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Cover your mouth when you cough so you won't spread germs.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ It can be caused by several different germs.
▪ It kills the germs as well, leaving the whole area clean and hygienic.
▪ Many of the germs that cause disease pass from our hands into our mouths; so can environmental metal toxins like lead.
▪ She wasn't allowed in crowded places where there might be germs.
▪ That lofty notion spread like a virulent germ into every law school in the nation.
▪ These germs are small outgrowths on the skin arranged locally in a hexagonal pattern.
▪ Yet there is a germ of truth in what Hadi says.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Germ

Germ \Germ\, v. i. To germinate. [R.]
--J. Morley.

Germ

Germ \Germ\ (j[~e]rm), n. [F. germe, fr. L. germen, germinis, sprout, but, germ. Cf. Germen, Germane.]

  1. (Biol.) That which is to develop a new individual; as, the germ of a fetus, of a plant or flower, and the like; the earliest form under which an organism appears.

    In the entire process in which a new being originates . . . two distinct classes of action participate; namely, the act of generation by which the germ is produced; and the act of development, by which that germ is evolved into the complete organism.
    --Carpenter.

  2. That from which anything springs; origin; first principle; as, the germ of civil liberty.

  3. (Biol.) The germ cells, collectively, as distinguished from the somatic cells, or soma. Germ is often used in place of germinal to form phrases; as, germ area, germ disc, germ membrane, germ nucleus, germ sac, etc.

  4. A microorganism, especially a disease-causing bacterium or virus; -- used informally, as, the don't eat food that falls on the floor, it may have germs on it.

    Disease germ (Biol.), a name applied to certain tiny bacterial organisms or their spores, such as Anthrax bacillus and the Micrococcus of fowl cholera, which have been demonstrated to be the cause of certain diseases; same as germ[4]. See Germ theory (below).

    Germ cell (Biol.), the germ, egg, spore, or cell from which the plant or animal arises. At one time a part of the body of the parent, it finally becomes detached, and by a process of multiplication and growth gives rise to a mass of cells, which ultimately form a new individual like the parent. See Ovum.

    Germ gland. (Anat.) See Gonad.

    Germ stock (Zo["o]l.), a special process on which buds are developed in certain animals. See Doliolum.

    Germ theory (Biol.), the theory that living organisms can be produced only by the evolution or development of living germs or seeds. See Biogenesis, and Abiogenesis. As applied to the origin of disease, the theory claims that the zymotic diseases are due to the rapid development and multiplication of various bacteria, the germs or spores of which are either contained in the organism itself, or transferred through the air or water. See Fermentation theory.

Related phrases:
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
germ

mid-15c., "bud, sprout;" 1640s, "rudiment of a new organism in an existing one," from Middle French germe "germ (of egg); bud, seed, fruit; offering," from Latin germen (genitive germinis) "sprout, bud," perhaps from PIE root *gen- "to beget, bear" (see genus). The older sense is preserved in wheat germ and germ of an idea; sense of "seed of a disease" first recorded 1796 in English; that of "harmful microorganism" dates from 1871. Germ warfare recorded from 1920.

Wiktionary
germ

n. 1 (context biology English) The small mass of cells from which a new organism develops; a seed, bud or spore. 2 A pathogenic microorganism. 3 The origin of an idea or project. 4 The embryo of a seed, especially of a seed used as a cereal or grain. See http://en.wikipedi

  1. org/wiki/Cereal%20germ. v

  2. 1 To germinate. 2 (context slang English) To grow, as if parasiti

Related phrases:
WordNet
germ

  1. n. anything that provides inspiration for later work [syn: source, seed]

  2. a small simple structure (as a fertilized egg) from which new tissue can develop into a complete organism

  3. a minute life form (especially a disease-causing bacterium); the term is not in technical use [syn: microbe, bug]

Related phrases:
Wikipedia
Germ

Germ or Germs may refer to:

Germ (mathematics)

In mathematics, the notion of a germ of an object in/on a topological space is an equivalence class of that object and others of the same kind which captures their shared local properties. In particular, the objects in question are mostly functions (or maps) and subsets. In specific implementations of this idea, the sets or maps in question will have some property, such as being analytic or smooth, but in general this is not needed (the maps or functions in question need not even be continuous); it is however necessary that the space on/in which the object is defined is a topological space, in order that the word local have some sense.

The name is derived from cereal germ in a continuation of the sheaf metaphor, as a germ is (locally) the "heart" of a function, as it is for a grain.

Related phrases:

Usage examples of "germ".

The cafe still serves breakfast all day, but the quiche on the menu is as likely to contain porta bello mushrooms as cheddar cheese, the bread is homemade, thick, and filled with goodies like wheat germ and nuts, and the lunch sandwiches are served on baguettes with avocado slices and bean sprouts.

As found in grains, it is mixed with a certain amount of vegetable fibre, covered with husks, or skin, and has the little germ or budlet of the coming plant inside it.

I left these charming creatures in the evening, promising to visit them again in a year, but as I walked home I could not help reflecting how often these asylums, supposed to be devoted to chastity and prayer, contain in themselves the hidden germs of corruption.

My parents, to their credit, allowed me the full indulgence of my hobby, although my mother often worried about germs and fire from the kerosene I used to degrease the bones.

It was demagoguery, he knew, but, like all effective demagoguery, contained a germ of truth: Stanton had already appointed a special provost marshal in Washington to carry out the arrests, with provost marshals in every loyal state with power to ignore local court rulings.

While some fetuses contributed whole ovary preparations, others had their ovaries minced and cultured, and others were reduced to providing disaggregated germ cell lines.

JUDAISM so largely supplied the circumstantial and doctrinal germs out of which dogmatic Christianity grew, that we cannot thoroughly understand the Christian belief in a final day of judgment, unless we first notice the historic and literary derivation of that belief from Judaism, and then trace its development in the new conditions through which it passed.

That this ectogenesis should combine the germ plasm from two male cells rather than from an egg and a sperm is of no more relevancy than your vestigial breasts.

They will take along germ plasm for exogenetic cultivation of domestic plants and animals-and of human infants, in order that population can grow fast enough to escape death through genetic drift.

One is that the right ovary furnishes the germs for males, the left for females that the right testicle furnishes sperm capable of fecundating the germs of males, and the left testicle, the germs of the left ovary, for females.

I turned the Bumbler on Festina, I could see the germs in her lungs, her stomach, her digestive tract, her bloodstream.

Government was the Folkmoot, the germ of the New England Town Meeting.

And so, by foreordination from the beginning of time, this fly was left behind to seek out a typhoid corpse and feed upon its corruptions and gaum its legs with germs and transmit them to the re-peopled world for permanent business.

A very slight variation in haplotype number, the kind of subtle, meaningless mutation that happened in the DNA of a germ cell.

But even when they came back alive they carried with them the germs of death, and another hecatomb ensued, another sacrifice to the monstrous god of social egotism.