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germinate

[jur-muh-nayt] / ˈdʒɜr məˌneɪt /


Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

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Jumping straight into a list of major to-dos would leave little time for ideas to germinate.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 8, 2026

And getting certification is a rigorous, costly process, as seeds need to be tested in a laboratory for their purity and things like how well they germinate.

From BBC ● Jul. 20, 2025

The problem is, when you remove 6 inches of soil from a yard, you’re likely removing some or all of the top soil, where plants germinate and get the nutrients they need to grow.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 24, 2025

It is filled with bacterial spores that, when exposed to nutrients present in compost, germinate and break down the material at the end of its life cycle.

From Science Daily ● Apr. 30, 2024

But again, although most of the seeds would germinate after one year, after two years the percentage would decline, and after three or four they would not do well at all.

From "Z for Zachariah" by Robert C. O’Brien

Normally, a pollen grain that sticks to the stigma of a flower during pollination germinates into a long tube that grows straight and unbranched through the ovary to the ovules, where fertilisation takes place.

From Science Daily ● Apr. 16, 2024

Meadowfoam germinates in early fall well in advance of winter weeds.

From Seattle Times ● Sep. 30, 2023

Unfortunately, I've never had much luck with it, probably because it germinates best at soil temperatures between 50 and 70 degrees F and the warm, sometimes even hot fall days mess with the germination.

From Salon ● Sep. 19, 2021

The need some feel to atone germinates a perceived opportunity for redemption; humans initially, ignorantly and irrationally feared the tiger-like creature, believing it to be a danger to them and their sheep.

From The Guardian ● Feb. 26, 2021

When the grain germinates it does not send up a simple cylindrical sprout like an oat, but a delicate stem terminating in a pointed swollen part which looks like a little spear-head. 

From Rustic Sounds and Other Studies in Literature and Natural History by Sir Francis Darwin

It is easy to laugh at the childlike naiveté of sending seeds to Mars, an idea that never germinated.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 13, 2026

Now tens of thousands of nursery-grown seedlings are mixed with the hundreds of thousands that germinated naturally.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 13, 2026

Once the grains germinated in a laboratory, the seedlings were planted in water in June, and harvesting began in early October.

From Barron's ● Oct. 31, 2025

Boxes full of fresh onions in the courtyard have now germinated.

From BBC ● Feb. 15, 2025

Either they were bulbs she had already planted or they had been in the sack so long they had germinated.

From "Song of Solomon" by Toni Morrison

Deadwood-decomposing fungi feed germinating orchids, providing the carbon their tiny seeds don't have.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 8, 2025

“I’m very interested in committing myself to helping raw milk emerge as a constructive, high standards, healthy, wonderful, germinating, delicious food.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 5, 2024

As Lee and Johnsen prepare for the next growing season, they’re nurturing hundreds of plants inside the atrium of their home as well as germinating and starting new plants from seedlings.

From Seattle Times ● May 22, 2024

In a final step, the researchers used a chemical process to confirm whether the excreted seeds were capable of germinating.

From Science Magazine ● May 8, 2024

I put the drawing of the man with the germinating brain in my room on the wall where I can see it when I roll over.

From "Counting by 7s" by Holly Goldberg Sloan




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