Other forms: germs
A germ is a tiny living thing that can make you ill. Spread germs, kill germs, germ-free.
It is the everyday word covering bacteria, viruses and fungi together, where the sciences keep them firmly apart. Germ theory — the understanding that diseases are caused by these organisms — is one of the most consequential ideas in history and only about a hundred and sixty years old. The other sense is a seed or beginning: the germ of an idea, wheat germ. Note germinate, which is the same seed.
1noungermA tiny living thing that can make you ill.
“Wash your hands often so you don't spread germs.”
2nounseedA seed or first beginning.
“The germ of the novel came from a story her grandmother told her.”
germ is a microbe or a seed.
Latin germen means a bud, seed or sprout. The seed sense is the original, and the disease sense came from calling the organism the seed of a disease.
Proto-Indo-European
*ǵenh₁-
Latin
germen — bud, seed, embryo
Middle French
germe
English, today
germ
From Middle French germe, from Latin germen (“bud, seed, embryo”). a doublet of germen.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA