Other forms: implants, implanted, implanting
To implant is to fix something into the body or the mind. Implant a device, an implanted pacemaker, implant an idea.
In medicine, implants include pacemakers, joints, dental implants and cochlear implants, and the noun is stressed on the first syllable while the verb is stressed on the second. In biology, implantation is the embryo attaching to the wall of the uterus. Figuratively, to implant an idea is to plant it in somebody's mind so they think it is their own. Note implantation, and transplant, which moves something already living.
1verbimplantTo fix something into the body.
“Doctors implanted a pacemaker to control his heartbeat.”
2verbideaTo fix an idea in somebody's mind.
“Her grandfather implanted a love of reading in her when she was small.”
implant is a fixing in.
Latin implantare is in- plus plantare, to plant — the same verb as plant and transplant. Implanting a pacemaker and planting a hedge are the same word, and the surgical sense is a metaphor from the garden.
Latin
implantō
Middle French
implanter
English, today
implant
From Middle French implanter, from Latin implantō. by surface analysis, im- + plant.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA