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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

seed.

Any propagative portion of a plant which may be sown, such as true seeds, seed-like fruits, tubers, or bulbs.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/siːd/Received-Pronunciation, US
  1. Any propagative portion of a plant which may be sown, such as true seeds, seed-like fruits, tubers, or bulbs.

    countable
  2. Any propagative portion of a plant which may be sown, such as true seeds, seed-like fruits, tubers, or bulbs. A fertilized and ripened ovule, containing an embryonic plant.

    countable
  3. Any propagative portion of a plant which may be sown, such as true seeds, seed-like fruits, tubers, or bulbs. Any small seed-like fruit.

    countable
    If you plant a seed in the spring, you may have a pleasant surprise in the autumn.
  4. An amount of seeds that cannot be readily counted.

    collective · uncountable
    The entire field was covered with geese eating the freshly sown seed.
  5. A fragment of coral.

    countable
  6. Semen.

    uncountable
    A man must use his seed to start and raise a family.
  7. A precursor.

    countable · figuratively
    the seed of an idea
    Which idea was the seed (idea)?
  8. The initial state, condition or position of a changing, growing or developing process; the ultimate precursor in a defined chain of precursors. The initial position of a competitor or team in a tournament. (seed position)

    countable · uncountable
    The team with the best regular season record receives the top seed in the conference tournament.
  9. The initial state, condition or position of a changing, growing or developing process; the ultimate precursor in a defined chain of precursors. The competitor or team occupying a given seed (position).

    countable · uncountable
    The rookie was a surprising top seed.
  10. The initial state, condition or position of a changing, growing or developing process; the ultimate precursor in a defined chain of precursors. The initialization state of a pseudorandom number generator or similar system.

    countable · uncountable
    If you use the same seed you will get exactly the same pattern of numbers.
  11. The initial state, condition or position of a changing, growing or developing process; the ultimate precursor in a defined chain of precursors. (by extension) A unique code that acts as a blueprint for generating a specific game world, determining terrain, structures, and resource placement.

    countable · uncountable
  12. The initial state, condition or position of a changing, growing or developing process; the ultimate precursor in a defined chain of precursors. A commercial message in a creative format placed on relevant sites on the Internet. (seed idea or seed message)

    Internet · countable · uncountable
    The latest seed has attracted a lot of users in our online community.
  13. Offspring, descendants, progeny.

    archaic · countable · uncountable
    the seed of Abraham
  14. Race; generation; birth.

    countable · uncountable
  15. A small particle, bubble, or imperfection that serves as a nucleation point for some process.

    countable · uncountable
  16. A small bubble formed in imperfectly fused glass.

    countable · uncountable
  17. A child.

    US · countable · slang · uncountable
Where this word comes from

] From Middle English seed, sede, side, from Old English sēd, sǣd (“seed, that which is sown”), from Proto-West Germanic *sād, from Proto-Germanic *sēdą, from Proto-Indo-European *seh₁- (“to sow, throw”). Cognates Cognate with Yola zeade (“seed”), North Frisian sead, seed, siad, Siid, sädj, säid (“seed”), Saterland Frisian Säid (“seed”), West Frisian sied (“seed”), Dutch zaad (“seed”), German Saat (“seed; sowing”), Limburgish zaod (“seed”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, and Norwegian Nynorsk sæd (“seed”), Faroese and Icelandic sáð (“seed”), Swedish säd (“seed”), Gothic *𐍃𐌴𐌸𐍃 (*sēþs, “seed”); also Latin serō (“to sow, plant”), Latvian sēt (“to sow”), Lithuanian sėti (“to sow”), Bulgarian се́я (séja, “to sow, plant”), Czech sít (“to sow”), Macedonian сее (see, “to sow”), Polish siać (“to sow”), Russian се́ять (séjatʹ, “to sow”), Serbo-Croatian се̏јати, sȅjati, си̏јати, sȉjati (“to sow”), Slovak siať (“to sow”), Slovene sejáti (“to sow”), Ukrainian сі́яти (síjaty, “to sow”). More at sow.

verb/siːd/Received-Pronunciation, US
  1. To plant or sow an area with seeds.

    transitive
    I seeded my lawn with bluegrass.
  2. To shed seeds (refers to plants)

    reflexive
    These poppies have not seeded themselves yet.
  3. To cover thinly with something scattered; to ornament with seedlike decorations.

    transitive
  4. To start; to provide, assign or determine the initial resources for, position of, state of.

    transitive
    A venture capitalist seeds young companies.
    The tournament coordinator will seed the starting lineup with the best competitors from the qualifying round.
  5. To allocate a seeding to a competitor.

  6. To leave (files) available for others to download through peer-to-peer file sharing protocols (e.g. BitTorrent).

    Internet · transitive
  7. To be qualified to compete, especially in a quarter-final, semi-final, or final.

    intransitive
    The tennis player seeded into the quarters.
  8. To scatter small particles within (a cloud or airmass) in order to trigger the formation of rain.

    A number of clouds were seeded to help provide rain to a drought-stricken area.
  9. To produce seed.

    intransitive
  10. To grow to maturity.

    intransitive
  11. To ejaculate inside the penetratee during intercourse, especially in the rectum.

    slang · vulgar
Where this word comes from

] From Middle English seed, sede, side, from Old English sēd, sǣd (“seed, that which is sown”), from Proto-West Germanic *sād, from Proto-Germanic *sēdą, from Proto-Indo-European *seh₁- (“to sow, throw”). Cognates Cognate with Yola zeade (“seed”), North Frisian sead, seed, siad, Siid, sädj, säid (“seed”), Saterland Frisian Säid (“seed”), West Frisian sied (“seed”), Dutch zaad (“seed”), German Saat (“seed; sowing”), Limburgish zaod (“seed”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, and Norwegian Nynorsk sæd (“seed”), Faroese and Icelandic sáð (“seed”), Swedish säd (“seed”), Gothic *𐍃𐌴𐌸𐍃 (*sēþs, “seed”); also Latin serō (“to sow, plant”), Latvian sēt (“to sow”), Lithuanian sėti (“to sow”), Bulgarian се́я (séja, “to sow, plant”), Czech sít (“to sow”), Macedonian сее (see, “to sow”), Polish siać (“to sow”), Russian се́ять (séjatʹ, “to sow”), Serbo-Croatian се̏јати, sȅjati, си̏јати, sȉjati (“to sow”), Slovak siať (“to sow”), Slovene sejáti (“to sow”), Ukrainian сі́яти (síjaty, “to sow”). More at sow.

verb/siːd/Received-Pronunciation, US
  1. simple past and past participle of see

    dialectal · form-of · participle · past
Where this word comes from

From see + -d (“past tense suffix; variant of -ed”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.