Also 6–7 embrio. [med.L. corruption of EMBRYON; the transliterated Gr. word was ignorantly regarded as of the third declension (genit. -ōnis), and the nom. case was assimilated to the normal Latin type. Cf. Ger. embryo, It. embrione.]
A. sb.
1. The offspring of an animal before its birth (or its emergence from the egg):
a. of man. In mod. technical language restricted to ‘the fœtus in utero before the fourth month of pregnancy’ (Syd. Soc. Lex.).
[c. 1350. Glanvil, De Propr. Rer., VI. iii. Hec materia est pellicula embryonis.]
1590. Swinburn, Treat. Test., 284. An vnperfect creature, or confused embrio.
c. 1645. Howell, Lett. (1650), I. III. xxix. 84. The ripening of the Embryo in the womb.
1777. Phil. Trans., LXVII. 23. I found this liquor absorbed into the embrio.
1841. Emerson, Meth. Nature, Wks. (Bohn), II. 225. The embryo does not more strive to be a man, than … a nebula tends to be a ring.
fig. 1874. Sayce, Compar. Philol., vii. 278. Lay undeveloped within the embryo of a single monosyllable.
b. of animals.
1638. Chillingw., Relig. Prot., I. ii. § 101. 91. Some yet are Embrio’s, yet hatching, and in the shell.
1866. Tate, Brit. Mollusks, ii. 18. They [the embryos] have a triangular shell provided with serrated hooks.
1870. Emerson, Soc. & Solit., Courage, Wks. (Bohn), III. 105. The little embryo [of the snapping-turtle] … bites fiercely.
transf. 1874. Carpenter, Ment. Phys., I. ii. § 59 (1879). The larva … may be regarded as a mere active embryo.
2. Bot. ‘The rudimentary plant contained in the seed’ (Syd. Soc. Lex.).
1728. Thomson, Spring, 99. The promised fruit Lies yet a little Embryo … Within its crimson folds.
1842. Gray, Struct. Bot., ii. (1880), 9. The Embryo is the initial plant, originated in the seed.
† 3. Chem. A metal or other chemical substance not disengaged from its native state of combination. Also attrib. Obs.
1652. French, Yorksh. Spa, vi. 55. Metals and Minerals … in their … Embrioes.
1751. Chambers, Cycl., s.v. Embryonatum Sulphur, Sulphur united to metals … in an embryo state.
4. fig. A thing in its rudimentary stage or first beginning; a germ; that which is still in idea as opposed to what has become actual in fact.
1601. Sir J. Ogle, in Sir F. Vere, Comm., 146. The project itself was but an Embryo.
a. 1628. F. Greville, Sidney (1652), 19–20. He bequeathed no other legacie, but the fire, to this unpolished Embrio.
a. 1714. Burnet, Own Time (1766), II. 218. Embrio’s of things, that were never like to have any effect.
1863. Kinglake, Crimea, VI. iii. 37. There not being in all Great Britain any embryo of a Commissariat force.
1872. Morley, Voltaire (1886), 10. Pale unshapen embryos of social sympathy.
b. In embryo: in an undeveloped stage; ‘that is to be.’ [? orig. Lat., from EMBRYON.]
1636–7. N. Hobart, in Verney Papers (1853), 188. There is a great preparation in embrio.
1685. trans. Gracian’s Courtiers Orac., 215. Let every skilfull Master … have a care not to let his works be seen in embrio.
1742. Shenstone, School-mistress, xxiii. There a Xhancellor in Embryo.
1792. Anecd. W. Pitt, III. xlii. 144. The indecent attempt to stifle this measure in embrio.
1824. Miss Mitford, Village, Ser. II. (1863), 395. The honourable Frederic G. … was a diplomatist in embryo.
1868. Gladstone, Juv. Mundi, i. (1870), 9. The Greek nation, as yet in embryo.
5. attrib. and Comb., as embryo-chick, -child, -germ, -life, -plant, -stage, -state; also embryo-bud, ‘an adventitious bud, when enclosed in the bark, as in the cedar of Lebanon’ (Syd. Soc. Lex.); embryo-cell, the first cell of the fecundated animal ovum; also in Bot. the germ in the embryo-sac of ferns, mosses, etc.; embryo-sac, Bot., a cavity in the ovule or the archegonium of a plant, within which the embryo is produced.
1835. Lindley, Introd. Bot. (1848), I. 177. *Embryo-buds … certain nodules … in the bark of the Beech.
1859. Todd, Cycl. Anat., V. 4/1. The *Embryo-cell.
1865. Livingstone, Zambesi, xv. 308. An egg is eaten here with apparent relish, though an *embryo chick be inside.
1882. Med. Temp. Jrnl., I. 184. The *embryo-child is fed upon these intoxicants, before he is fairly in the world.
1859. Todd, Cycl. Anat., V. 134/2. The primitive … yolk-substance is employed in the formation of … *embryo-germ.
1879. trans. Haeckel’s Evol. Man, I. i. 12. *Embryo-life within the egg-membranes.
1878. Huxley, Physiogr., 220. Subject to chemical analysis, the *embryo plant yields certain complex bodies.
1872. Oliver, Elem. Bot., I. iii. 24. This enlarged cell is called the *embryo-sac.
B. adj. [From the attrib. use of the sb.] That is still in germ; immature, unformed, undeveloped.
1684. T. Burnet, The. Earth, II. 135. In that dark Womb usually are the seeds and rudiments of an Embryo-World.
1742. Young, Nt. Th., V. 99. Thou … in whose breast Embryo-creation … dwelt.
1798. Loves of Triangles, 96, in Anti-Jacobin, 23 April (1852), 110. Flame embryo lavas, young volcanoes glow.
1821. Craig, Lect. Drawing, iii. 146. The embryo connoisseur.
1826. Disraeli, Viv. Grey, I. I. iii. 17. Scribbling embryo prize-poems.
1853. C. Brontë, Villette, xxvii. The collegians he addressed … as embryo patriots.
1876. M. Arnold, Lit. & Dogma, 31. Philosophers dispute whether moral ideas … were not once inchoate, embryo, dubious, unformed.
