spermism
spermism noun: the belief, held by spermists, that the male sperm holds the whole germ of the future animal.
Noun
spermism (uncountable)
- The belief, held by spermists, that the male sperm holds the whole germ of the future animal.
- It is tempting to dismiss spermism as a quaint curiosity in the history of ideas, on a par, say, with believing that the Earth is flat.2001, David M Friedman, A Mind of its Own, Robert Hale, published 2009, page 62
Origin of spermism
From sperm + -ism.
Questions about spermism
- What does spermism mean?
- Spermism means the belief, held by spermists, that the male sperm holds the whole germ of the future animal.
- What part of speech is spermism?
- Spermism is a noun.
Words near spermism in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: spermism (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.
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Cite this entry: “spermism.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/spermism. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.