Word.ws English Dictionary

sem

/sɛm/

sem is the clipping of seminary.

sem is the clipping of semester.

sem is the clipping of semicolon.

Meaning of seminary

Noun

seminary (plural seminaries)

  1. A theological school for the training of rabbis, priests, or ministers.
  2. A private residential school for girls.
    • Three little maids who, all unwary,
      Come from a ladies' seminary1885, W[illiam] S[chwenck] Gilbert; Arthur Sullivan, composer, […] The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu, London: Chappel & Co., […], →OCLC
  3. (Mormonism) A class of religious education for youths ages 14–18 that accompanies normal secular education.
  4. A piece of ground where seed is sown for producing plants for transplantation.
    • I shall first begin with the Seminary and Nursery, as what is the first Work to be taken care of where you have not the opportunity of buying Trees1707, J[ohn] Mortimer, The Whole Art of Husbandry; or, The Way of Managing and Improving of Land. […], London: […] J[ohn] H[umphreys] for H[enry] Mortlock […], and J[onathan] Robinson […], →OCLC
  5. (broadly) The place or original stock from which anything is brought or produced.
    • Seeing then there is indeed a twofold Seminary or stock in nature, from whence are deriv’d the issues of love and hatred distinctly flowing through the whole masse of created things, and that Gods doing ever is to bring the due likenesses and harmonies of his workes together, except when out of two...1643, John Milton, Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce
  6. (obsolete) Seminal state or polity.
    • The hand of God that first created the Earth, hath with variety disposed the principles of all things; wisely contriving them in their proper seminaries1650, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], 2nd edition, London: […] A[braham] Miller, for Edw[ard] Dod and Nath[aniel] Ekins, […], →OCLC

See all 9 meanings of seminary

Meaning of semester

Noun

semester (plural semesters)

  1. Half of a school year (US) or academic year such as autumn or spring semester.
    • I will graduate at the end of the spring semester.
  2. A period or term of six months.

Noun capitalized: SEM

SEM (countable and uncountable, plural SEMs)

  1. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of scanning electron microscope.
  2. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of scanning electron microscopy.
  3. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of secondary electron multiplier.
  4. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of search engine marketing.
  5. (abbreviation, initialism) Initialism of standard error of the mean.
  6. (abbreviation, initialism, computer security) Initialism of security event management.

Adjective capitalized: Sem

Sem

  1. (abbreviation) Abbreviation of Semitic.

Forms of sem

pluralsems
pluralSEMs

Words formed from sem

Words that rhyme with sem

22 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about sem

What is sem the clipping of?
Sem is the clipping of seminary.
What part of speech is sem?
Sem can be a noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce sem?
Sem is pronounced /sɛm/.
What is the plural of sem?
The plural of sem is sems.

Words near sem in the dictionary

  1. Selzers
  2. Selznick
  3. Selznickian
  4. Selzthal
  5. Selçuk
  6. sem
  7. sema
  8. sema-
  9. Semaan
  10. Semaans
  11. Semacode

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sem (page history and authors); SEM (page history and authors); Sem (page history and authors); seminary (page history and authors); semester (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-sem.wav.

Cite this entry: “sem.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sem. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.