sperm
noun
Simple meaning
The male reproductive cell.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
spurmIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈspɝm
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
The male reproductive cell; the male gamete
“A sperm is mostly a nucleus surrounded by little other cellular material.”
chemistry
Sperm oil; whale oil from a sperm whale; spermaceti.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Varies by meaning
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The male reproductive cell; the male gamete
Used this way, sperm is a common word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in technical or specialist writing contexts.
“A sperm is mostly a nucleus surrounded by little other cellular material.”
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Technical/specialist writing
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use sperm
- “A sperm is mostly a nucleus surrounded by little other cellular material.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A depository for storing sperm.
The male reproductive cell.
The number of sperm in an ejaculate.
An animal oil found in the blubber of the sperm whale.
Large whale with a large cavity in the head containing spermaceti and oil.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: male reproductive cell
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.