embryo

UK/ˈɛmbɹi.əʊ/US/ˈɛmbɹi.oʊ/

nounB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #9,274 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: embryos

An embryo is a living thing at its very first stage, before birth or hatching. A human embryo, embryo transfer, in embryo.

In humans the word covers the first eight weeks, after which it is a foetus — the line is where the organs have formed. In embryo means at an early stage, said of plans as much as of animals. A plant seed contains an embryo too.

Definitions of embryo

1nounembryoA living thing at its very first stage, before birth.B2+
“Scientists watched the tiny embryo develop inside the egg.”

embryo is a stage of life.

Where it comes from

Greek embryon means what grows within — en, in, plus bryein, to swell or grow.

Ancient Greek
ἔμβρυον — fetus
Medieval Latin
embryō
English, today
embryo

Built from

ἐν · Ancient Greek — in-
βρύω · Ancient Greek — to grow, swell

Borrowed from Medieval Latin embryō, from Ancient Greek ἔμβρυον (“fetus”), from ἐν (“in-”) + βρύω (“to grow, swell”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Science & Space

Practise this word

embryo in the wild

A newly developing human is typically referred to as an embryo until the ninth week after conception, when it is then referred to as a fetus.
Embryo
In botany, a seed is a plant structure containing an embryo and stored nutrients in a protective coat called a testa.
Seed
The embryo within a seed develops from the zygote and grows within the mother plant to a certain size before growth is halted.
Seed
The amniotic sac, also called the bag of waters or the membranes, is the sac in which the embryo and later fetus develops in amniotes.
Amniotic sac
The inner of these membranes, the amnion, encloses the amniotic cavity, containing the amniotic fluid and the embryo.
Amniotic sac

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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