sperm
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /spɜɹm/
ipa: /spɜːm/
rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)m
Forms: form: sperm
form: sperms
Etymology: From Middle English sperme, from Latin sperma, from Ancient Greek σπέρμα (spérma, “seed, semen”). Compare also Old French esperme, sparme.
Senses: examples: text: In the Fall into the division of labor, Levi-Strauss sees the great hunters trading women to create the exogamous bonds of one hunting band with another. The egg is, but the sperm does. The tiny sperm may be furious in its activity, but its highway to the egg is paved by the alkaline trail set down by the Great Mother.
ref: 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 80:
text: Seeing the two little moving cells – the result of her egg and Luke's sperm – was incredible, and two very long weeks later the clinic confirmed I was pregnant.
ref: 2012 April 13, Sarah Whitehouse, The Guardian:
text: “Female may accept the sperms of male that can catapult but deplete the sperms of male that can be easily caught by her,” he said.
ref: 2022 April 26, Megan Marples, “Tiny spider catapults to safety after mating to avoid sexual cannibalism”, in CNN:
text: However, in some men precum will contain sperm so adequate protection should be used to prevent pregnancy.
ref: 2024 June 11, Dr. Steve Chapman, “Is swallowing semen good for you?”, in Better2Know:
glosses: The reproductive cell or gamete of the male; a spermatozoon.
examples: text: Other Nations there are, that never have use of fire; Others, whose sperme is of a blacke colour.
ref: 1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 12, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:
text: Deer sperm was in used among the Romans as an aphrodisiac.
ref: 1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 227:
glosses: Semen; the generative substance of male animals.
examples: text: Holding his candle so that he could read the coffin plates, and so holding it that the sperm dropped in white patches which congealed as they touched the metal, he made assurance of Lucy’s coffin.
ref: 1897, Bram Stoker, Dracula:
topics: chemistry
natural-sciences
physical-sciences
glosses: Sperm oil; whale oil from a sperm whale; spermaceti.
Synonyms: sense: generative substance
word: cum
sense: generative substance
word: semen
sense: reproductive cell
word: spermatozoon
sense: reproductive cell
word: sperm cell
sense: of fish
word: milt
word: seed
Hypernyms: sense: reproductive cell
word: gamete
Derived terms: allosperm
angiosperm
antisperm
aquasperm
asthenospermic
autosperm
chrysosperm
endosperm
gymnosperm
gymnospermous
hematospermia
metasperm
monospermous
monospermy
oligospermous
oosperm
perisperm
polysperm
polyspermia
polyspermic
polyspermous
polyspermy
Spermageddon
spermaholic
spermalege
sperm ampulla
spermarche
spermary
spermatheca
spermatic
spermatid
spermatocyte
spermatogenesis
spermatogenetic
spermatogenous
spermatogonium
spermatoid
spermatophyte
spermophyte
spermatorrhea
spermatorrhoea
spermatozoal
spermatozoon
sperm bank
sperm-blossom
sperm blossom
sperm cell
sperm count
sperm donor
spermhead
-spermia
spermic
spermicidal
spermicide
spermidine
spermidium
sperminator
spermine
spermiogenesis
spermism
spermist
spermjacking
spermless
spermlike
sperm morula
spermogonium
spermagonium
spermophagia
spermophile
spermoplasm
spermous
sperm sac
sperm sack
sperm whale
spermy
supersperm
teratosperm
tetraspermous
zoosperm