embryonic
/ˌɛmbrɪˈɒnɪk
/adjective
1Relating to an embryo: slight differences in embryonic development...
- And that's what the opponents of embryonic stem cell research have pounced upon.
- The company thus avoids using embryonic stem cells, still objects of controversy.
- If so, it would not be necessary to use the ethically more problematic embryonic stem cells.
Synonyms
fetal, unborn, unhatched
2(Of a system, idea, or organization) in a rudimentary stage with potential for development: the plan is still in its embryonic stages...
- I think this game has come too early for a unit in the embryonic stages of its development.
- The diocese continues to insist that there never was a plan to remove the screen and says it was only one embryonic idea among others.
- Hamilton's embryonic ideas seemed to bear the taint of eugenics.
Synonyms
rudimentary, undeveloped, unformed, immature, incomplete, incipient, inchoate, just beginning;
fledgling, budding, beginning, potential, nascent, emerging, developing;
early, primary, elementary, germinal
Derivatives
embryonically
- She had wept, curling embryonically under the duvet, hoping it would cover the nakedness of her flesh and her pain.
- The whole point of such a search rests on the assumption that evolution will inevitably tease out the potential for intelligence already lurking, however embryonically, in the prebiotic chemical soup of other life-bearing planets.
- Because legs develop embryonically and wings develop late in larval life in Tribolium, we have focused on assessing the role of Drosophila appendage allocation genes in leg development rather than wing development.
Origin
Mid 19th century: from late Latin embryo, embryon- 'embryo' + -ic.
Rhymes
- Church of Englandism
- church office
- church officer
- Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
- Church of Scotland
- church order
- church-out
- church owl
- church pale
- church papist
- church parade
- church parader
- church parading
- church path
- church pennant
- church people
- church person
- church planting
- church pluralist
- churchquake
- church rate
- church reeve
- church register
- church rent
- church robber