germinate

English

Etymology

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(deprecated template usage) [etyl] Latin germinatus, past participle of germinare (“to sprout”).

Verb

1. (intransitive, botany, horticulture) Of a seed, to begin to grow, to sprout roots and leaves.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Francis Bacon to this entry?)

   • 2014 April 5, “Quite interesting: A quietly intriguing column from the brains behind QI, the BBC quiz show. This week; QI orchids you not”, in The Daily Telegraph (Weekend), page W22:

     Orchids rely on fungi to reproduce. Their tiny seeds don't have any on-board nutrients (like beans and apples) and will not germinate until they are infected by a symbiotic fungus which supplies them with food. Known as a protocorm, this tiny orchid-fungus ball grows, turns green and eventually starts to photosynthesise.

   • 2014 December 23, Olivia Judson, “The hemiparasite season [print version: Under the hemiparasite, International New York Times, 24–25 December 2014, page 7]”, in The New York Times‎^[1], archived from the original on 23 December 2014:

     […] The flesh [of the mistletoe berry] is sticky, and forms strings and ribbons between my thumb and forefinger. For the mistletoe, this viscous goop – and by the way, viscous comes to English from viscum – is crucial. The stickiness means that, after eating the berries, birds often regurgitate the seeds and then wipe their bills on twigs – leading to the seeds' getting glued to the tree, where they can germinate and begin the cycle anew.

2. (transitive) To cause to grow; to produce.
   • 1913, Robert Barr, chapter 5, in Lord Stranleigh Abroad‎^[2]:

     These were business hours, and a feeling of loneliness crept over him, perhaps germinated by his sight of the illustrated papers, and accentuated by an attempted perusal of them.

Translations

sprout or produce buds

• Bulgarian: покълвам (pokǎlvam), пониквам (bg) (ponikvam)
• Catalan: germinar (ca)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 發芽／发芽 (zh) (fāyá), 发芽 (zh) (fāyá)

• Finnish: itää (fi)
• Galician: xerminar, xermolar (gl)
• Georgian: ამოსვლა (amosvla), აღმოცენება (aɣmoceneba), გაღივება (gaɣiveba)
• German: keimen (de)
• Greek: βλαστάνω (el) (vlastáno), φυτρώνω (el) (fytróno)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Hungarian: csírázik (hu)
• Icelandic: spíra, skjóta frjóöngum
• Ido: jermifar (io)
• Maori: kahu, tinaku
• Norwegian: spire (no)
• Romanian: germina (ro), încolți (ro)
• Russian: прорастать (ru) (prorastatʹ)
• Spanish: germinar (es)
• Swedish: gro (sv)
• Westrobothnian: ,

cause to grow

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 產生／产生 (zh) (chǎnshēng), 产生 (zh) (chǎnshēng), 形成 (zh) (xíngchéng)

• Finnish: idättää (fi)
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Hungarian: csíráztat (hu)
• Russian: please add this translation if you can

Anagrams

• germanite, reteaming

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Italian

Verb

germinate

1. second-person plural present of germinare
2. second-person plural imperative of germinare

Anagrams

• emigrante, regimante, regimenta, remigante

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Latin

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Participle

(deprecated template usage) germināte

1. vocative masculine singular of germinātus