The germ of the novel was an article in The Guardian highlighting the 50 to 60 bodies pulled from the Thames every year.
And despite years of speculation, nobody has proved Assad has any germ warfare capability at all.
I am positive the germ count in the dugout alone could be classified as an occupational hazard.
Until Melching's organization started its three-year training program, no one knew the basics of germ theory—or its link to HIV.
It is not only to the most dreaded diseases that he has applied the germ theory.
The body of the germ is infolded, so that the embryo appears bent on itself.
Often, she had read, the places where kidnapers confined their victims were filthy and germ laden.
This was the germ thought: Character is to get its direction and energy in the day's work.
Here is the germ of benefit societies and clubs and insurances and hospitals.
But the idea lying at the root of this group of tales is as yet only in germ.
mid-15c., "bud, sprout;" 1640s, "rudiment of a new organism in an existing one," from Middle French germe "germ (of egg); bud, seed, fruit; offering," from Latin germen (genitive germinis) "sprout, bud," perhaps from PIE root *gen- "to beget, bear" (see genus). The older sense is preserved in wheat germ and germ of an idea; sense of "seed of a disease" first recorded 1803; that of "harmful microorganism" dates from 1871. Germ warfare recorded from 1920.
A small mass of protoplasm or cells from which a new organism or one of its parts may develop.
A microorganism, especially a pathogen.
A microscopic organism or agent, especially one that is pathogenic, such as a bacterium or virus.
Our Living Language : The terms germ and microbe have been used to refer to invisible agents of disease since the nineteenth century, when scientists introduced the germ theory of disease, the idea that infections and contagious diseases are caused by microorganisms. Microbe, a shortening and alteration of microorganism, comes from the Greek prefix mikro-, "small," and the word bios, "life." Scientists no longer use the terms germ and microbe very much. Today they can usually identify the specific agents of disease, such as individual species of bacteria or viruses. To refer generally to agents of disease, they use the term pathogen, from the Greek pathos, "suffering," and the suffix -gen, "producer." They use microorganism to refer to any unicellular organism, whether disease-causing or not.