Literary notes about Seminal (AI summary)
The term seminal is employed in literature with a dual meaning that spans both the physical and the metaphorical. In some contexts, it denotes the literal seed or reproductive substance—as seen when authors refer to anatomical structures like seminal vesicles, ducts, or fluid in relation to physiological processes [1, 2, 3]. In other instances, the word is used figuratively to signify an originating or foundational idea, a driving principle in thought or creation, which imbues the concept with lasting impact and generative power [4, 5, 6, 7]. This interplay between the tangible and the abstract allows authors to explore themes of growth, origin, and influence, making seminal a richly layered term in literary discourse [8, 9].
- They innervate the ejaculatory ducts, the seminal vesicles, vasa deferentia and testicles.
— from Love: A Treatise on the Science of Sex-attraction for the use of Physicians and Students of Medical Jurisprudence by Bernard Simon Talmey - The seminal fluid is discharged down the urethra and emitted at orifice marked "meatus."
— from Safe Marriage: A Return to Sanity by Ettie Annie Rout - The prostate was almost exterminated and the seminal vesicles were very primitive in conformation.
— from Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine by Walter L. (Walter Lytle) Pyle - THE SOUL IS A PLURAL UNITY OF SEMINAL REASONS.
— from Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 3In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four Periods by Plotinus - In seeds, it is not the moist element that should be valued, but the invisible principle, number, and the (seminal) reason.
— from Plotinos: Complete Works, v. 1In Chronological Order, Grouped in Four Periods by Plotinus - This was a seminal thought, bodied in an institution.
— from The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible by Richard Heber Newton - Ideas themselves he considered as mysterious powers, living, seminal, formative, and exempt from time.
— from Biographia Literaria by Samuel Taylor Coleridge - But by this means of seminal propagation there (“Which continueth” in the old copy.)
— from Gargantua and Pantagruel by François Rabelais - From the beams of this seminal sun will be generated, with tropical luxuriance, the myriad new forms of thought and life in America.
— from The Good Gray Poet, A Vindication by William Douglas O'Connor
