Seminal

//ˈsɛmɪnəl// adj, noun

adj, noun ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A seed. obsolete

    "the seminals of spiders and scorpions"

Adjective
  1. 1
    Of or relating to seed or semen.

    "During the summer, he studied calmars at Lisbon, but found no appearance of any roe, nor any reservoir which appeared to be destined for the reception of the seminal liquor; and it was in the middle of December, that he began to discern the first traces of a new vessel replete with a milty juice."

  2. 2
    Creative or having the power to originate.
  3. 3
    Highly influential, especially in some original way, and providing a basis for future development or research.

    ""The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" was a seminal work in the modern philosophy of science."

Adjective
  1. 1
    containing seeds of later development wordnet
  2. 2
    pertaining to or containing or consisting of semen wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
germinalinnovativeoriginativeinfluentialinnovativeaboriginal

Example

More examples

"Imogen of the Internet has created a seminal classification of thirty distinct varieties of chatspeak, some now facing linguistic extinction."

Etymology

From Middle English seminal, semynal, from Old French seminal, seminale, from Latin sēminālis.

Related phrases

human seminal plasma protein hypersensitivityseminal fluidseminal vesicle

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.