embryo

noun (plural embryos)

• 1an unborn or unhatched offspring in the process of development.
• an unborn human, especially in the first eight weeks from conception, after implantation but before all the organs are developed. Compare with fetus.

• 2 Botany the part of a seed which develops into a plant, consisting (in the mature embryo of a higher plant) of a plumule, a radicle, and one or two cotyledons.

• 3a thing at a rudimentary stage that shows potential for development:a simple commodity economy is merely the embryo of a capitalist economy [as modifier]:an embryo central bank