seminal
/ˈsɛmɪnəl/
seminal adjective: of or relating to seed or semen.
Adjective
seminal (comparative more seminal, superlative most seminal)
- Of or relating to seed or semen.
- During the summer, he studied calmars at Lisbon, but found no appearance of any roe, nor any reservoir which appeared to be destined for the reception of the seminal liquor; and it was in the middle of December, that he began to discern the first traces of a new vessel replete with a milty juice.1792, George Louis Le Clerc, Barr's Buffon. Buffon's Natural History, page 126
- Synonyms:
- germinal
- Creative or having the power to originate.
- Synonyms:
- innovative, primary
- Highly influential, especially in some original way, and providing a basis for future development or research.
- "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" was a seminal work in the modern philosophy of science.
- The idea of God is, beyond all question or comparison, the one great seminal principle.1827, Julius Hare, Augustus William Hare, Guesses at Truth
- Synonyms:
- influential, pioneering, innovative, formative
Noun
seminal (plural seminals)
- A seed.
- the seminals of spiders and scorpions1650, Thomas Browne, Pseudodoxia Epidemica: […], 2nd edition, London: […] A[braham] Miller, for Edw[ard] Dod and Nath[aniel] Ekins, […], →OCLC
seminal meaning in Tamil, Bengali and Malayalam
seminal in Tamil
- விந்துவ
seminal in Bengali
- মৌলিক, অত্যন্ত প্রভাবশালী, বীজের মতো
seminal in Malayalam
- ground-breaking, influential, formative
- മൗലികമായ, പ്രാഥമികമായ, സ്വാധീനം ചെലുത്തുന്ന, രൂപദായകമായ, നൂതനമായ, പുതിയ പന്ഥാവിലേക്കു നയിക്കുന്ന
Examples of seminal in a sentence
- Army Brass Quintet echoed off the murals depicting seminal moments in American history.
- Bartolomé de las Casas is a seminal figure of early Latin American colonial history and literature.
- Tom Ravenette wrote this seminal paper, 'Never ever ever give advice'.
Synonyms of seminal
Forms of seminal
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more seminal |
| superlative | most seminal |
| Noun | |
| plural | seminals |
Origin of seminal
From Middle English seminal, semynal, from Old French seminal, seminale, from Latin sēminālis, ultimately from oblique stem of Latin sēmen, sēminis (“seed”) + -al.
Words formed from seminal
Phrases with seminal
Words that rhyme with seminal
- Seminole
- bigeminal
- cervicotrigeminal
- encephalotrigeminal
- extratrigeminal
- geminal
- juxtatrigeminal
- nasotrigeminal
- paratrigeminal
- spinotrigeminal
- subtrigeminal
- supratrigeminal
1 more rhymesFewer rhymes
Questions about seminal
- What does seminal mean?
- Seminal means of or relating to seed or semen.
- What is seminal in Tamil?
- Seminal in Tamil is விந்துவ. See Seminal meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is seminal?
- Seminal can be an adjective or a noun.
- How do you pronounce seminal?
- Seminal is pronounced /ˈsɛmɪnəl/.
Words near seminal in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: seminal (page history and authors); seminal (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); seminal (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); seminal (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). 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-seminal.wav.
Cite this entry: “seminal.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/seminal. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.