English → Latin
“seed” in Latin
serōto sow, plant; to beget, bring forth, produce; to found, establish; scatter, spread, disseminate; propagate; excite; causēmenseed (of plants); semen; graftcausacause, reason; case, claim, contention; cause, judicial process, lawsuitstirpsrootstock; the lowest part of the trunk of a plant, including the roots.; a plant, shrub, shoot, sprout; lineage, race, prōdōto exhibit, reveal, make known; to give, put, bring forth, come forth; to generate, produce, propagate, bear, beget
Riddle & Arnold A Copious and Critical English–Latin Lexicon, 1864
seed
PROP., semen. to sow seed, semen spargere (Cic.); semen jacere, serere (Plin.); semen solo ingerere, or terras mandare (Col.); semen jactare, demittere in terram (Varr.). Seed is apt not to come up, semen difficulter animatur: seed comes up, semen procedit or prodit. To go to seed, in semen ire or abire in semina crescere.
Figuratively, semen: causa. (The words are found in this connection and order.) semen et causa (Cic.): stirps: igniculi ac semina. To sow the seeds of anything, sementem alicujus rei facere; velut semina jacere alicui rei (e.g., bello): nova semina ministrare alicui rei (of sowing the seeds of another war, etc., bello). To sow the seeds of political troubles, civiles discordias serere
Quick answer
- What is the Latin word for seed?
- The usual Latin words for “seed” are serō, sēmen, causa; also stirps, prōdō. The right choice depends on the sense; see the distinctions below.
Entry from J. E. Riddle & T. K. Arnold, A Copious and Critical English–Latin Lexicon (rev. C. Anthon, New York: Harper, 1864), digitised by Fergus J. P. Walsh, CC BY-SA 4.0; Latin markup adapted by latindictionary.co.