seed

To plant or sow an area with seeds.

Noun

  1. Any propagative portion of a plant which may be sown, such as true seeds, seed-like fruits, tubers, or bulbs.
    • […] for hungry birds have devoured ſeeds, and having moiſtened and warmed them in their bellies, a little after have dunged in the forky twiſtes of Trees, and together with their dung excluded the ſeed whole which erſt...

    Synonyms: spawn

    1. (countable, botany) A fertilized and ripened ovule, containing an embryonic plant.

      Synonyms: spawn

    2. (countable) Any small seed-like fruit.

      • If you plant a seed in the spring, you may have a pleasant surprise in the autumn.
      • The exiguity and ſmallneſſe of ſome ſeeds extending to large productions is one of the magnalities of nature, ſomewhat illuſtrating the work of the Creation, and vaſt production from nothing. - 1658, Thomas Browne, “The...
      • Plant breeding is always a numbers game.[…]The wild species we use are rich in genetic variation, […]. In addition, we are looking for rare alleles, so the more plants we try, the better. These rarities may be new...

      Synonyms: spawn

  2. An amount of seeds that cannot be readily counted.
    • The entire field was covered with geese eating the freshly sown seed.
  3. A fragment of coral.
  4. Semen.
    • A man must use his seed to start and raise a family.
    • And if any mans seede of copulation goe out from him, then hee shall wash all his flesh in water, and bee vncleane vntill the Euen. - 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […],...
  5. A precursor.
    • the seed of an idea
    • Which idea was the seed (idea)?
    • Sometimes it takes more than you have / To benefit from what you know / Sometimes you keep pouring water / But the seeds don't grow, woah - 1977, Ashford & Simpson, “Too Bad”, in Send It:

    Synonyms: germ

  6. The initial state, condition or position of a changing, growing or developing process; the ultimate precursor in a defined chain of precursors.
    • The team with the best regular season record receives the top seed in the conference tournament.

    1. (sports) The initial position of a competitor or team in a tournament. (seed position)

    2. The competitor or team occupying a given seed (position).

      • The rookie was a surprising top seed.
      • Serving at deuce and trailing to Germany’s Tamara Korpatsch 5-2 in the first set of their second-round match at the French Open, the Chinese No. 32 seed saw a forehand called out by a line judge. - 2026 May 28,...

    3. (cryptography, computing) The initialization state of a pseudorandom number generator or similar system.

      • If you use the same seed you will get exactly the same pattern of numbers.
      • As suggested in [3], space can be saved by using a deterministic pseudo random number generator (PRNG) and storing only the seed of that PRNG. - 2009, Daniel J. Bernstein, Johannes Buchmann, Erik Dahmen, editors,...

      Synonyms: seed number

    4. (video games) (by extension) A unique code that acts as a blueprint for generating a specific game world, determining terrain, structures, and resource placement.

      • Seeds are Minecraft's way of generating terrain. Each biome you spawn in is determined by the seed. With a custom seed, you can have a desert biome right next to a mesa biome. - 2015, Jesse Stay, Thomas Stay, Jacob...

      Synonyms: seed number

    5. (Internet marketing) A commercial message in a creative format placed on relevant sites on the Internet. (seed idea or seed message)

      • The latest seed has attracted a lot of users in our online community.
  7. Offspring, descendants, progeny.
    • the seed of Abraham
    • Next him king Leyr in happie peace long raind, / But had no issue male him to succeed, / But three faire daughters, which were well vptraind, / In all that seemed fit for kingly seed […] - 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book...
  8. Race; generation; birth.
    • Of mortal seed they were not held. - a. 1687, Edmund Waller, To Zelinda:
  9. A small particle, bubble, or imperfection that serves as a nucleation point for some process.
  10. A small bubble formed in imperfectly fused glass.
  11. A child.
    • Seeds know what time it is, like it's time for Teletubbies - 2004, MF DOOM, “One Beer”, in MM..FOOD:

Origin

] From Middle English seed, sede, side, from Old English sēd, sǣd (“seed, that which is sown”), from Proto-West Germanic *sād, from Proto-Germanic *sēdą, from Proto-Indo-European *seh₁- (“to sow, throw”). Cognates Cognate with Yola zeade (“seed”), North Frisian sead, seed, siad, Siid, sädj, säid (“seed”), Saterland Frisian Säid (“seed”), West Frisian sied (“seed”), Dutch zaad (“seed”), German Saat (“seed; sowing”), Limburgish zaod (“seed”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, and Norwegian Nynorsk sæd (“seed”), Faroese and Icelandic sáð (“seed”), Swedish säd (“seed”), Gothic *𐍃𐌴𐌸𐍃 (*sēþs, “seed”); also Latin serō (“to sow, plant”), Latvian sēt (“to sow”), Lithuanian sėti (“to sow”), Bulgarian се́я (séja, “to sow, plant”), Czech sít (“to sow”), Macedonian сее (see, “to sow”), Polish siać (“to sow”), Russian се́ять (séjatʹ, “to sow”), Serbo-Croatian се̏јати, sȅjati, си̏јати, sȉjati (“to sow”),...

Forms

seeds sede

Hyponyms

crack seed

Derived

aburachan seed allseed amber seed apple seed bad seed benniseed birdseed black seed squash boneseed burseed canary seed caraway seed bread celery seed chia seed cloudseed coixseed coleseed coriander seed cottonseed cupseed dandelion seed deseed dillseed drift seed

Verb Entry 2

  1. To plant or sow an area with seeds.
    • I seeded my lawn with bluegrass.
  2. To shed seeds (refers to plants)
    • These poppies have not seeded themselves yet.
  3. To cover thinly with something scattered; to ornament with seedlike decorations.
    • […] AGRYPNIA, or Vigilance, in yellovv, a ſable mantle, ſeeded vvith vvaking eies, and ſiluer fringe: […] - 1604 March 25 (first performance; Gregorian calendar), B[en] Jon[son], “The Pegme at Fen-church”, in B. Jon:...
  4. To start; to provide, assign or determine the initial resources for, position of, state of.
    • A venture capitalist seeds young companies.
    • The tournament coordinator will seed the starting lineup with the best competitors from the qualifying round.
    • The programmer seeded fresh, uncorrupted data into the database before running unit tests.
  5. To allocate a seeding to a competitor.
    • Everybody likes to second‐guess computers, including who seed the pros. Nothing could have better exposed the vulnerability of the computer seeding than the spectacle of clay‐court experts looking like weekend hackers...
  6. To leave (files) available for others to download through peer-to-peer file sharing protocols (e.g. BitTorrent).
  7. To be qualified to compete, especially in a quarter-final, semi-final, or final.
    • The tennis player seeded into the quarters.
  8. To scatter small particles within (a cloud or airmass) in order to trigger the formation of rain.
    • A number of clouds were seeded to help provide rain to a drought-stricken area.
  9. To produce seed.
  10. To grow to maturity.
  11. To ejaculate inside the penetratee during intercourse, especially in the rectum.

Forms

seeds seeding seeded sede

Derived

overseed self-seed

Verb dialectal, form of

  1. simple past and past participle of see
    • Presently a rioting noise was heard without. Starting up, the landlord cried, "That's the Grampus's crew. I seed her reported in the offing this morning; a three years' voyage, and a full ship. Hurrah, boys; now we'll...

Origin

Etymology tree English see English -d English seed From see + -d (“past tense suffix; variant of -ed”).