embryo

¹

[em-bree-oh]

noun

plural

embryos 

1. the young of a viviparous animal, especially of a mammal, in the early stages of development within the womb, in humans up to the end of the second month.

2. the rudimentary plant usually contained in the seed.

3. any multicellular animal in a developmental stage preceding birth or hatching.

4. the beginning or rudimentary stage of anything.

   He charged that the party policy was socialism in embryo.

adjective

1. embryonic.

embryo-

²

1. a combining form representing embryo in compound words.

   embryology.

embryo

/ ˈɛmbrɪˌəʊ /

noun

1. an animal in the early stages of development following cleavage of the zygote and ending at birth or hatching

2. the human product of conception up to approximately the end of the second month of pregnancy Compare fetus

3. a plant in the early stages of development: in higher plants, the plumule, cotyledons, and radicle within the seed

4. an undeveloped or rudimentary state (esp in the phrase in embryo )

5. something in an early stage of development

   an embryo of an idea

embryo

1. An animal in its earliest stage of development, before all the major body structures are represented. In humans, the embryonic stage lasts through the first eight weeks of pregnancy. In humans, other placental mammals, and other viviparous animals, young born as embryos cannot thrive. In marsupials, the young are born during the embryonic stage and complete their development outside the uterus, attached to a teat within the mother's pouch.

2. The developing young of an egg-laying animal before hatching.

3. The sporophyte of a plant in its earliest stages of development, such as the miniature, partially developed plant contained within a seed before germination.

embryo

1. A developing plant or animal. A plant embryo is an undeveloped plant inside a seed. An animal embryo is the animal as it develops from the single cell of the zygote until birth. Among humans and most other mammals, the embryo is carried in the mother's womb.

The term is occasionally used to denote a new or developing idea or project: “The idea for the complete theory was already present in his work, in embryo form, in 1950.”

Other Word Forms

• embryoid adjective

Word History and Origins

Origin of embryo¹

First recorded in 1580–90; from Medieval Latin embryo, embryon-, from Greek émbryon, noun use of neuter of émbryos “ingrowing,” equivalent to em- “in” + bry- (stem of brýein “to swell”) + -os adjective suffix; em- ²

Word History and Origins

Origin of embryo¹

C16: from Late Latin, from Greek embruon, from bruein to swell

Example Sentences

More than one million embryos now sit in U.S. storage facilities, up from roughly 400,000 in 2002, according to the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

The practice is currently used at a smaller scale in day-to-day medicine, where living cells such as blood cells, sperm and embryos are frozen at ultra-low temperatures to be stored.

Read more on BBC

In clinical terms, IVF involves removing eggs from a woman, fertilizing them in a lab with sperm and implanting embryos in the uterus.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

They are working toward creating a child born from an embryo edited to prevent a hereditary disease.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

The technique also successfully repaired mutations linked to scoliosis in zebrafish embryos.

Read more on Science Daily

When To Use

What does embryo- mean?

Embryo- is a combining form used like a prefix representing the word embryo. It is often used in scientific terms, especially in anatomy and biology.Embryo- ultimately comes from the Greek émbryos, meaning “ingrowing.”What are variants of embryo-?When combined with words or word elements that begin with a vowel, embryo- becomes embry-, as in embryectomy.