IMPREGNATION • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Impregnation

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noun

Impregnation n.

The act of impregnating or the state of being impregnated; fecundation.

(Biol.) The fusion of a female germ cell (ovum) with a male germ cell (in animals, a spermatozoön) to form a single new cell endowed with the power of developing into a new individual; fertilization; fecundation. Note: In the broadest biological sense, impregnation, or sexual generation, consists simply in the coalescence of two similar masses of protoplasmic matter, either derived from different parts of the same organism or from two distinct organisms. From the single mass, which results from the fusion, or coalescence, of these two masses, a new organism develops.

That with which anything is impregnated.

Intimate mixture; infusion; saturation.

(Mining) An ore deposit, with indefinite boundaries, consisting of rock impregnated with ore.

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Etymology of 'Impregnation'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Impregnation" Quotes from Famous Books

... offspring cannot be considered as in any way more dependent upon bodily organisation; nor yet the sites which insects choose for the laying of their eggs; nor, again, the selection of deposits of spawn, of their own species, by male fish for impregnation. The rabbit burrows, the hare does not, though both have the same burrowing apparatus. The hare, however, has less need of a subterranean place of refuge by reason of its greater swiftness. Some birds, with excellent powers of flight, are nevertheless stationary ...

— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler

... 70-72; Tyrolese story of the girl who might not see the sun, 72; modern Greek stories of the maid who might not see the sun, 72 sq.; ancient Greek story of Danae and its parallel in a Kirghiz legend, 73 sq.; impregnation of women by the sun in legends, 74 sq.; traces in marriage customs of the belief that women can be impregnated by the sun, 75; belief in the impregnation of women by ...

— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer

Words linked to "Impregnation" : fertilisation, plastination, pervasion, creation, conception, pollenation, saturation, material, cross-fertilisation, self-fertilisation, permeation, pollination, stuff, cross-fertilization, self-fertilization, superfetation, fecundation, impregnate, suffusion