seminary

noun

1. A theological school for the training of rabbis, priests, or ministers.
2. A private residential school for girls.

   “Three little maids who, all unwary, Come from a ladies' seminary”

3. (Mormonism)A class of religious education for youths ages 14–18 that accompanies normal secular education.
4. A piece of ground where seed is sown for producing plants for transplantation.

   “I shall first begin with the Seminary and Nursery, as what is the first Work to be taken care of where you have not the opportunity of buying Trees”

   “[B]ut if you draw them [seedlings] only for the thinning of your Seminary, prick them into ſome empty Beds at one foot interval, leaving the reſt at two or three.”

5. (broadly)The place or original stock from which anything is brought or produced.

   “the Seminary or Promptuary that furnisheth forth Matter for the Formation and Increment of Animal and Vegetable Bodies”

6. (obsolete)Seminal state or polity.

   “The hand of God that first created the Earth, hath with variety disposed the principles of all things; wisely contriving them in their proper seminaries”

7. A Roman Catholic priest educated in a foreign seminary; a seminarist.

   “I shall not need to instance in the effects which this bull produced; the treason of Watson and Cleark, two English seminaries, are sufficiently known”

8. (archaic)An academic seminar.

adj

1. (not-comparable)Of or relating to seed; seminal.