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# germinate

«germinate» in Mova's school dictionary: **When a seed germinates, it starts to grow and puts out a…** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

### part of speech

verb (germinate, germinates, germinated, germinating)

### meaning for a pupil

1) When a seed germinates, it starts to grow and puts out a root and a shoot. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/G/germinate/#m1)

2) To germinate an idea is to begin to develop it (formal). [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/G/germinate/#m2)

### sense in the lessons

In science lessons, seeds need water, warmth and air to germinate; light is not needed at first. Children germinate beans in jars on wet cotton wool or paper towel. Phrases: «seeds germinate», «take days to germinate».

### examples

- The bean seeds germinated after five days. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/G/germinate/#x1)
- Seeds need water and warmth to germinate. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/G/germinate/#x2)
- We germinated cress on damp cotton wool. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/G/germinate/#x3)
- Seeds will not germinate if they are too cold. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/G/germinate/#x4)
- The root comes out first when a seed germinates. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/G/germinate/#x5)
- An idea for the story germinated in her head. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/G/germinate/#x6)

### note

Noun: «germination». Not to be confused with «germ» (a tiny thing that causes illness) — though both come from an old word for «seed» or «sprout». In science problems, count the days to germinate or the number of seeds that germinate out of a total («8 out of 10 germinated»).

### In the corpora

- [Most seeds do not need light to germinate, because they use their own food store at first.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/25-life-cycles/17/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «germinate» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/G/germinate/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.