Forms: 4–7 sperme, 6 spearme, sparme, 7 sparm, 6– sperm. [ad. OF. esperme (F. sperme), sparme, or L. sperma (hence also It. sperma, Sp. and Pg. esperma), a. Gr. σπέρμα, f. the stem of σπείρειν το sow.]
I. 1. The generative substance or seed of male animals (esp. of vertebrates).
c. 1386. Chaucer, Monk’s T., 19. In the feld of Damassene With goddes owene finger wroght was he And nat bigeten of mannes sperme [Harl. MS. sperma] unclene.
1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XIII. xxix. (Tollem. MS.). The whale haþ gret plente of sperme, and after þat he gendreþ with þe female, superfluite þerof fleteþ aboue þe water.
a. 1425. trans. Arderne’s Treat. Fistula, etc. 14. Som-tyme þe sperme goþ oute by þe hole or þe ȝerde infistulate.
1526. Grete Herball, xxviii. (1529), B v b. Ambre is hote and drye…. Some say that it is the sparme of a whale.
1549. Compl. Scot., vi. 67. I sau hemp, that coagulis the flux of the sparme.
1605. Timme, Quersit., I. xvi. 85. We see, of bread and wine, blood to be made; of blood, sperm or seed.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., 330. And thus may it also be in the generation and sperme of Negroes.
1725. Fam. Dict., s.v. Poultry, The Cock … rarifies the Egg, and renders it fit to produce its Species by the Sperm or Tread he infuses into it.
1783. Justamond, trans. Raynal’s Hist. Indies, V. 361. It hath since been imagined, that pearls must be the eggs or the sperm of the fish inclosed in the shell.
1822–7. Good, Study Med. (1829), V. 6. The male shortly afterwards passes over the spawn or hard roe, and discharges upon it his sperm, which we call soft roe or milt.
1878. F. J. Bell, Gegenbaur’s Elem. Comp. Anat., 53. Receptacles which serve for the collection of the sperm.
b. A spermatozoon.
1904. Brit. Med. Jrnl., 15 Oct., 964. Gametes (eggs and sperms).
1905. G. A. Reid, Princ. Heredity, xii. 162. If these same sperms reside for a longer time [etc.].
† 2. a. The eggs of insects. Obs.
1615. W. Lawson, Country Housew. Gard. (1626), 44. The red peckled butter-flye doth euer put them [i.e., caterpillars], being her sparm, among the tender spraies for better feeding.
1747. W. Gould, Eng. Ants, 34. A just Description of the Sperm or Egg (which is entirely answerable to what the Queen lays).
† b. Offspring, brood (of persons). Obs. rare.
1641. Milton, Animadv., Wks. 1851, III. 237. Let not those wretched Fathers thinke they shall impoverish the Church…, though they keep back their sordid sperm begotten in the lustinesse of their avarice.
3. transf. The generative matter or source from which anything is formed or takes its origin:
a. Of plants.
1610. J. Davies (Heref.), Commed. Poems, Vaughan, Wks. (Grosart), II. 3/2. His royall Trench (that … holds the Sperme of Herbage by a Spring).
1620. Markham, Farew. Husb. (1625), 99. The worme … deuouring vp the substance or sperm, is the cause that the corne cannot grow.
1642. H. More, Song of Soul, II. I. ii. 25. I’ll call’t form bestiall, It makes a beast added to plantall sperm.
b. Of other material things.
1651. French, Distill., v. 108. Water is both the Sperme, and the Menstruum of the world.
1671. J. Webster, Metallogr., iv. 77. The Sperm of Metals is not different from the sperm of other things, to wit, an humid vapour.
1694. Motteux, Rabelais, IV. i. 3. The Fifth [ship had for its device] a famous Kan made of Sperm of Emerald.
1845. Bailey, Festus (ed. 2), 120. The primal sperm and matter of the world.
c. Of qualities, conditions, etc.
1639. G. Daniel, Ecclus. xxvi. 91. Infects her mind With the black Sperme of Contradiction.
1659. C. Noble, Inexpediency Exped., 4. The Remedy that is prescribed is the very Seed and Sperm … and Vivary of that difference.
1820. Shelley, Ode Liberty, xv. ’Tis the sperm Of what makes life foul, cankerous, and abhorred.
4. a. attrib., as sperm-bag, -ball, -cell, -germ, etc.
1849. Phil. Trans., CXXXIX. I. 347. The spermatozoa are distinctly seen in the *sperm-bag.
1887. Encycl. Brit., XXII. 424/2. Each cell … produces a large number of spermatozoa, which occur in spherical clusters or *sperm-balls.
1851. Carpenter, Man. Phys. (ed. 2), 148. In the lower tribes, both of Plants and Animals, we find that *‘sperm-cells’ and ‘germ-cells’ are developed in the midst of the ordinary tissues of the body.
1881. Mivart, Cat, 318. The male pronucleus is a spermatozoon, which is a part of the nucleus of the original sperm-cell.
1868. Watts, Dict. Chem., V. 397. With *sperm-corpuscles, mucus-corpuscles, and epithelium-scales.
1859. Todd’s Cycl. Anat., V. [138]. Two different organised bodies, which are respectively formed from two different cells; the ovigerm and the *spermgerm.
1856. Emerson, Eng. Traits, Ability (1903), 56. Stall-feeding makes *sperm-mills of the cattle.
1826. Kirby & Sp., Entomol., IV. xlii. 146. The *Sperm-reservoir (Spermatheca) is an organ connecting the vagina with the oviduct.
1883. Lankester, in Encycl. Brit., XVI. 682/2. In other Mollusca … this formation of *‘sperm ropes’ is known.
1859. Huxley, Oceanic Hydrozoa, 64. The smaller contained a *sperm-sac, with incompletely developed spermatozoa.
1841. T. R. Jones, Anim. Kingd., 280. Two long auxiliary vessels … that have been named *sperm-vessels, gluten-vessels, and gum-vessels, by different authors.
b. Comb., as sperm-forming, -like, -secreting adjs.
1836–9. Todd’s Cycl. Anat., II. 414/1. The principal forms of the sperm-secreting organs.
1876. Bristowe, Th. & Pract. Med. (1878), 32. Infect them, by either growing parasitically…, or (sperm-like) imparting to them specific properties.
1878. F. J. Bell, Gegenbaur’s Elem. Comp. Anat., 53. The relation of the egg-forming and sperm-forming organs to one another varies greatly.
II. (Short for SPERM WHALE or SPERMACETI.)
5. a. Sperm oil, an oil found together with spermaceti in the head of various species of whales.
1839. T. Beale, Nat. Hist. Sperm Whale, 149. There was still a gradual increase in the importation of sperm oil.
1857. Miller, Elem. Chem., Org., vi. § 1. 358. The principal drying oils are those of linseed, walnut, hemp,… and sperm oil.
1883. Fisheries Exhib. Catal., 202. Crude and refined Sperm oil, used for illuminating,… and in the manufacture of spermaceti.
attrib. 1849. Cupples, Green Hand, ii. (1856), 18. Trimming up the sperm-oil lights.
b. Sperm candle, a spermaceti candle.
1856. Orr’s Circ. Sci., Pract. Chem., 458. 15 sperm candles will give the light of 16·5 stearic.
1890. Gladstone, in Daily News, 29 Oct., 3/5. The only clean and tidy candles … were wax candles and sperm candles.
6. A sperm whale. Also collect. and attrib.
1840. F. D. Bennett, Narr. Whaling Voy., II. 185. The commencement of the Sperm Fishery by England.
1854. Chamb. Jrnl., 28 Jan., 53/2. See, again! there is a sperm of the largest size, which has just leaped.
1860. Maury, Phys. Geog. Sea, xviii. 772. The parts of the ocean … in which the sperm are found.
1895. Pall Mall Gaz., 16 Dec., 2/1. He killed as many as five sperms in a single day with one harpoon.
b. Sperm-bird (see quot.).
1840. F. D. Bennett, Narr. Whaling Voy., I. 10. Many ocean birds of the high south latitudes were now visible around us, as nellies (Procellaria gigantea); blue-petrels, or sperm-birds (Prion pachyptila); [etc.].
7. Sperm candles or oil.
1856. Orr’s Circ. Sci., Pract. Chem., 458. If there be any difference, the light of sperm is a little greater, and that of stearic acid a little whiter.
1890. W. Clark Russell, Ocean Trag., I. iv. 68. The soft … radiance diffused by the burning sperm.
