Definition of "embryo"

embryo

/ˈɛmbɹi.əʊ/

noun
plural embryos or embryones
1. In the reproductive cycle, the stage after the fertilization of the egg that precedes the development into a fetus.
2. An organism in the earlier stages of development before it emerges from the egg, or before metamorphosis.
3. In viviparous animals, the young animal's earliest stages in the mother's body
4. In humans, usually the cell growth of the child within the mother's body, through the end of the seventh week of pregnancy
5. (botany) A rudimentary plant contained in the seed.
6. (figurative) The beginning; the first stage of anything.
  Quotations
  […] while the Company little ſuſpected what a noble Work I had then in Embryo […]
  1731 (date written), Simon Wagstaff [pseudonym; Jonathan Swift], “An Introduction to the Following Treatise”, in A Complete Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation, […], London: […] B[enjamin] Motte […], published 1738, page lxxviii
  it dives into the heart of the observed, and there espies evil, as it were, in the first embryo […]
  1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volumes (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […]
  Lord Lufton, with his barony and twenty thousand a year, might be accepted as just good enough; but failing him there was an embryo marquis, whose fortune would be more than ten times as great, all ready to accept his child!
  1860 January – 1861 April, Anthony Trollope, Framley Parsonage. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], published April 1861

Definition of "embryo"

embryo

noun

Quotations