type of flowering plant, from Latin impatiens "impatient" (see impatient). So called in reference to the valves of the seed pods, which discharge forcibly at a slight touch.
seed from which cocoa and chocolate are made, 1550s, from Spanish cacao "the cocoa bean," an adaptation of Nahuatl (Aztecan) cacaua, root form of cacahuatl "bean of the cocoa-tree."
"elongated seed vessel of beans, peas, etc.," 1680s, a word of uncertain origin; found earlier in podware "seed of legumes, seed grain" (mid-15c.), which had a parallel form codware "husked or seeded plants" (late 14c.), related to cod "husk of seeded plants," which was in Old English. In reference to a round belly from 1825; in reference to pregnancy from 1890. Meaning "detachable body of an aircraft" is from 1950.
Pod people (1956) was popularized by the movie "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," based on the 1954 novel by U.S. author Jack Finney about a plant-like alien life form that arrives on Earth as pods and are capable of replicating people.
Old English sawan "to scatter seed upon the ground or plant it in the earth, disseminate" (class VII strong verb; past tense seow, past participle sawen), from Proto-Germanic *sean (source also of Old Norse sa, Old Saxon saian, Middle Dutch sayen, Dutch zaaien, Old High German sawen, German säen, Gothic saian), from PIE root *sē- "to sow," source of semen, season (n.), seed (n.). Figurative sense was in Old English.
before vowels gon-, word-forming element from Greek gonos "seed, that which engenders," from PIE *gon-o-, suffixed form of root *gene- "give birth, beget."
"covered with a small, constantly repeating pattern," 1560s, from French semée "strewn, sprinkled," past participle of semer, from Latin seminare "to sow," from semen (genitive seminis) "seed" (from PIE root *sē- "to sow").
the dried, winged fruit of certain trees, as the ash, birch, or elm (the maple's is a large double samara), 1570s, from Latin samara "the seed of the elm," a variant of samera, which is perhaps from Gaulish.
