germen

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   historical botany: the ovary of a flower, containing the ovules and developing into the fruit after fertilization

   Pollen from the other species caused the germen to swell even though no mature seed formed.

2. 2
   noun

   biology, archaic: a germ, seed, bud, or earliest rudiment from which an organism develops

   The naturalist described the minute germen from which the new structure arose.

Borrowed from Latin germen, 'sprout, bud, seed, or offspring,' related to gignere, 'to beget.' Germen and germ are doublets. Linnaean botanists used germen specifically for the flower part now called the ovary.

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