seminal
Americanadjective
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pertaining to, containing, or consisting of semen.
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Botany. of or relating to seed.
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having possibilities of future development.
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highly original and influencing the development of future events.
a seminal artist; seminal ideas.
- Synonyms:
- innovative, formative, primary, germinal
adjective
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potentially capable of development
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highly original, influential, and important
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rudimentary or unformed
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of or relating to semen
seminal fluid
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biology of or relating to seed
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of seminal
1350–1400; Middle English < Latin sēminālis, equivalent to sēmin- (stem of sēmen ) seed, semen + -ālis -al 1
Explanation
Call something seminal when it's so original, so groundbreaking and awesome that it will influence everything that comes after it. Picasso produced more than a few seminal works of art, for example. Technically, seminal means something related to semen or seeds. But these days people more often use the word to describe something that plants the seed for creative growth. An innovative piece of music or literature, a fresh new idea, or an invention that changes everything could each be called seminal. Synonyms include critical, fundamental, original, and primary.
Vocabulary lists containing seminal
100 SAT words Beginning with "S"
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This Week in Pop Culture: February 2 - 8, 2019
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Just Mercy
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
George Russell's admission after qualifying that he has been struggling to maximise the Mercedes car all season felt like a seminal moment in the championship fight.
From BBC • Jun. 9, 2026
The “divisive matter of race,” the authors write, “which the founding fathers had tried to sidestep, would emerge as the seminal issue during the next fifty years.”
From The Wall Street Journal • May 22, 2026
That’s the implication of a seminal study, entitled “Bubbles for Fama,” which challenges University of Chicago professor Eugene Fama’s famous claim that bubbles cannot be identified in advance.
From MarketWatch • May 18, 2026
The seminal storyline saw the Green Goblin kill Stacy, Peter Parker’s then-girlfriend, after discovering the webslinger’s identity.
From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 28, 2026
Considering the frequency with which they turn up at seminal events in eighteenth-century science, remarkably little is known about either man.
From "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
