rudimentary plant in the seed before it starts a period of rapid growth.

Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary
embryo (noun)
1.
a) archaic a vertebrate at any stage of development prior to birth or hatching
b) an animal in the early stages of growth and differentiation that are characterized by cleavage, the laying down of fundamental tissues, and the formation of primitive organs and organ systems , especially the developing human individual from the time of implantation to the end of the eighth week after conception
2.
the young sporophyte of a seed plant usually comprising a rudimentary plant with plumule, radicle, and cotyledons
3.
a) something as yet undeveloped
b) a beginning or undeveloped state of something - productions seen in embryo during their out-of-town tryout period Henry Hewes
Related Articles:
embryo (Wikipedia)
For other uses, see Embryo (disambiguation).
Embryo
Embryo 7 weeks after conception.jpg
A human embryo, seven weeks old
or nine weeks' gestational age
Identifiers
MeSHD004622
TEE1.0.2.6.4.0.8
FMA69068
Anatomical terminology

An embryo is an early stage of development of a multicellular diploid eukaryotic organism. In general, in organisms that reproduce sexually, an embryo develops from a zygote, the single cell resulting from the fertilization of the female egg cell by the male sperm cell. The zygote possesses half the DNA from each of its two parents. In plants, animals, and some protists, the zygote will begin to divide by mitosis to produce a multicellular organism. The result of this process is an embryo.

In human pregnancy, a developing fetus is considered as an embryo until the ninth week, fertilization age, or eleventh-week gestational age. After this time the embryo is referred to as a fetus.

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