embryo

noun

Etymology: Borrowed from Medieval Latin embryō, from Ancient Greek ἔμβρυον (émbruon, “fetus”), from ἐν (en, “in-”) + βρύω (brúō, “to grow, swell”).

1. In the reproductive cycle, the stage after the fertilization of the egg that precedes the development into a fetus.

   “SE onset depends on a complex network of interactions among plant growth regulators, mainly auxins and cytokinins, during the proembryogenic early stages, and ethylene and gibberellic and abscisic acids later in the development of somatic embryos.”

   “In situ hybridisations were performed on devitellinised embryos still wrapped around the yolk and on embryos with the yolk dissected away.”

2. An organism in the earlier stages of development before it emerges from the egg, or before metamorphosis.
3. In a viviparous animal, the young animal's earliest stages in the mother's body.
4. In a human, usually the cell growth of the child within the mother's body, through the end of the seventh week of pregnancy.
5. A rudimentary plant contained in the seed.
6. The beginning; the first stage of anything.

   “[…]while the Company little ſuſpected what a noble Work I had then in Embryo […]”

   “it dives into the heart of the observed, and there espies evil, as it were, in the first embryo […]”