[ad. mod.L. *spermatista or F. spermatiste, f. L. spermat-, sperma sperm + -IST.] One who held the view that the sperm alone was the source of animal life.
1836–9. Todd’s Cycl. Anat., II. 427/1. According to the … theory … of the Spermatists,… the male semen alone furnished all the vital parts of the new animal.
1899. J. A. Thomson, Sci. Life, 125. Other observers, nicknamed ‘spermatists’ or ‘animalculists,’ believed them [sc. spermatozoa] to be the earliest stages of the young animal.
