embryonic definitions

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: of an organism prior to birth or hatching; "in the embryonic stage"; "embryologic development" [syn: embryonic, embryologic, embryonal]
2: in an early stage of development; "the embryonic government staffed by survivors of the massacre"; "an embryonic nation, not yet self-governing" [syn: embryonic, embryotic]

Merriam Webster's

adjective Date: circa 1841 1. of or relating to an embryo 2. being in an early stage of development ; incipient, rudimentary <an embryonic plan> • embryonically adverb

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Embryonic Em`bry*on"ic, a. (Biol.) Of or pertaining to an embryo; embryonal; rudimentary. Embryonic sac or vesicle (Bot.), the vesicle within which the embryo is developed in the ovule; -- sometimes called also amnios sac, and embryonal sac.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Embryonic Em`bry*on"ic, a. (Biol.) Of or pertaining to an embryo; embryonal; rudimentary. Embryonic sac or vesicle (Bot.), the vesicle within which the embryo is developed in the ovule; -- sometimes called also amnios sac, and embryonal sac.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

An embryonic process, idea, organization, or organism is one at a very early stage in its development. (FORMAL) ...Romania's embryonic democracy. ...embryonic plant cells. ADJ: usu ADJ n

Moby Thesaurus

abecedarian, aboriginal, antenatal, arrested, atomic, autochthonous, backward, basal, basic, beginning, budding, callow, central, coarse, corpuscular, creative, crucial, crude, defective, deficient, elemental, elementary, evanescent, failing, fetal, formative, foundational, fundamental, generative, genetic, germinal, germinant, germinational, germinative, germiparous, gestatory, granular, hypoplastic, immature, impalpable, imperceptible, imponderable, in arrear, in arrears, in default, in embryo, in its infancy, in ovo, in short supply, in the bud, in the rough, inadequate, inappreciable, inaugural, inceptive, inchoate, inchoative, incipient, incomplete, incunabular, indiscernible, infant, infantile, infinitesimal, initial, initiative, initiatory, intangible, introductory, inventive, invisible, lacking, larval, microcosmic, microscopic, missing, molecular, nascent, natal, needing, original, oversimple, part, partial, parturient, patchy, postnatal, pregnant, prenatal, primal, primary, prime, primeval, primitive, primogenial, primordial, pristine, procreative, protogenic, radical, reductionistic, reductive, rough, roughcast, roughhewn, rude, rudimental, rudimentary, scant, scanty, scrappy, seminal, short, shy, simplistic, sketchy, stunted, subatomic, tenuous, thin, ultramicroscopic, unblown, uncultivated, uncultured, uncut, underdeveloped, undeveloped, unfashioned, unfinished, unformed, unhewn, unlabored, unlicked, unpolished, unprocessed, unrefined, unseeable, untreated, unworked, unwrought, ur, wanting