Definition of "germinal" []

• Of, relating to, or having the nature of a germ cell. (adjective)
• Of, relating to, or occurring in the earliest stage of development: was active in the germinal stages of the space program. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "But no sooner has one written the word germinal than one begins to experience the desire to peep ahead at the ending or, rather, to look in the beginnings for symptoms of the terminus."
• "This yolk contains a germinal vesicle in which can be discovered a nucleus, called the germinal spot."
• "With this conviction I attempted, as far back as 1894, when the idea of germinal selection had not yet occurred to me, to make "harmonious adaptation" (coadaptation) more easily intelligible in some way or other, and so I was led to the idea, which was subsequently expounded in detail by Baldwin, and Lloyd Morgan, and also by Osborn, and Gulick as _Organic Selection_."