emboîtement

English

Etymology

From French emboîtement.

Noun

emboîtement (uncountable)

1. (biology, now historical) The outdated hypothesis that all living things proceed from pre-existing germs, and that these encase the germs of all future living things, enclosed one within another.
   • 1997, Roy Porter, The Greatest Benefit to Mankind, Folio Society, published 2016, page 217:

     [R]ivals professed to see an equivalent in the semen, giving rise to the ‘preformation’ or emboîtement theories which contended that the new individual was completely developed as a tiny homunculus from the moment of conception.

French

Etymology

From emboîter (“to fit together”) +‎ -ment.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɑ̃.bwat.mɑ̃/

Noun

emboîtement m (plural emboîtements)

1. interlocking, stacking

Further reading

• “emboîtement”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.