embryo

Noun

embryo (plural embryos or embryones)

1. In the reproductive cycle, the stage after the fertilization of the egg that precedes the development into a fetus.
   • SE onset depends on a complex network of interactions among plant growth regulators, mainly auxins and cytokinins, during the proembryogenic early stages, and ethylene and gibberellic and abscisic acids later in the development of somatic embryos.2015 August 18, Clelia De-la-Peña et al., “The role of chromatin modifications in somatic embryogenesis in plants”, in Frontiers in Plant Science, volume 6, →DOI
   • In situ hybridisations were performed on devitellinised embryos still wrapped around the yolk and on embryos with the yolk dissected away.2015 December 4, “Divergent RNA Localisation Patterns of Maternal Genes Regulating Embryonic Patterning in the Butterfly Pararge aegeria”, in PLOS ONE, →DOI
2. An organism in the earlier stages of development before it emerges from the egg, or before metamorphosis.
3. In a viviparous animal, the young animal's earliest stages in the mother's body.
4. In a human, usually the cell growth of the child within the mother's body, through the end of the seventh week of pregnancy.
5. A rudimentary plant contained in the seed.
6. (figuratively) The beginning; the first stage of anything.
   • […]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: […]...
   • 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, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC