semen

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English semen,^[2][3] borrowed from Latin sēmen (“seed”),^[4][5][6][2] from the base of serō (“to sow”).^[4][7][8][9] In Latin it meant the seed of plants, animals or people, and also race, offspring, and figuratively origin or cause.^[5] The Latin noun is cognate with Old High German sāmo (“seed”) (modern German Same), Old Saxon sāmo and Old Prussian semen (“seed”).^[10][11] Etymonline derives it from a suffixed form of Proto-Indo-European *sē- (“to sow”).^[5][3][10] The same root gives English seed and sow.^[12][13][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The impregnating fluid of male animals: before 1398, in John Trevisa's translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus, De Proprietatibus Rerum.^[4][6][2] The Middle English Dictionary also records it there for the reproductive substance in the womb.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The meaning has stayed close to its first use.^[4][8] Hoad dates the word to the 14th century but its regular use to the 18th.^[7] In pharmacy Latin semen was also used for the seed of a plant, as in semen pedicularis.^[11] From 1954 the word also meant a store of semen kept for artificial insemination,^[4] as in semen bank, a sperm bank.^[8]

Timeline

• before 1398 – the fertilizing fluid of male animals.^[4][2]
• 1954 – a store of semen for artificial insemination.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. The thick whitish fluid produced by the male reproductive organs, containing spermatozoa.^[14][11][4]
2. (pharmacy) A plant seed, chiefly in Latin names of drugs.^[11]

Word family

• seminoma

Related words

• seed
• sow
• seminal
• seminary
• disseminate

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
7. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
11. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
12. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
13. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
14. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins