Spermist
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 One who believed that the complete human being was contained in the sperm rather than the ovum. historical
"Esa-Pekka Salonen, in his wry program notes for his “Homunculus” (2007) for string quartet, writes that he has long “been fascinated (and amused) by the theory of the arcane spermists, who held the belief that the sperm was in fact a ‘little man’ (homunculus) that was placed inside a woman for growth into a child.”"
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"Esa-Pekka Salonen, in his wry program notes for his “Homunculus” (2007) for string quartet, writes that he has long “been fascinated (and amused) by the theory of the arcane spermists, who held the belief that the sperm was in fact a ‘little man’ (homunculus) that was placed inside a woman for growth into a child.”"
Etymology
From sperm + -ist.
Related phrases
More for "spermist"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.