Definitions

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The seventh month of the French republican calendar [1792 -- 1806]. It began March 21 and ended April 19. See vendémiaire.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • proper noun historical The seventh month of the French Republican Calendar, from March 20 or 21 to April 20 or 21.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin germen (germination)

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Examples

  • Germinal is a great book about working in the mines, L’Assommoir is about alcohol abuse and running laundries, Nana is pretty fabby and that’s about prostitution.

    Zola and Naturalism « Tales from the Reading Room 2010

  • He seemed to me like one of those characters in Zola's "Germinal" who loves every living thing and yet is able to resort to dynamite for the sake of the striking miners.

    My Disillusionment in Russia Goldman, Emma, 1869-1940 1923

  • Zola's "Germinal" as awe-inspiring to those who feel the heart beat of our age even as the heroic deeds of Hannibal's warriors were to his contemporaries?

    Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature Various 1904

  • Belgian commissioners has shown a state of things in the coal mines, pictured with tremendous power by Zola in his novel "Germinal," but in no sense a new story, since the conditions of Belgian workers are practically identical with those of women-workers in Silesia, or at any or all of the points on the continent where women are employed.

    Prisoners of Poverty Abroad Helen Campbell 1878

  • "Germinal," Zola, who spent months observing every phase of their life, has given a picture, unsurpassed in any literature, of the misery and degradation of the worker.

    Women Wage-Earners Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future Helen Campbell 1878

  • "Germinal," from Emile Zola's novel centered on 19th century mining life.

    Brandon Sun Online - Top Stories 2009

  • Among those he directed was "Germinal," in 1993, adapted from the Emile Zola novel of the horrors of mining and "Lucie Aubrac" in 1997 about a female hero of the Resistance during World War II.

    The Herald | HeraldOnline.com - Front 2009

  • Among Berri's grander projects were "Germinal," an adaptation of Zola's 19th-century novel about exploited French coal miners, and "Uranus," a brooding film about French collaborators during the war that probes the nature of their guilt.

    International Herald Tribune - World News, Analysis, and Global Opinions 2009

  • When the critic of the future has to assign him a place and to compare his productions with the writings of his great contemporary and fellow-worker Émile Zola, it will occur to him that Daudet never had the steady-going indomitable energy, the ox-like patience, the large and comprehensive intellect which are so characteristic in the master of Médan; that he recoiled from assuming, like the author of 'Germinal' and 'Lourdes,' a bold and definite position in the social and religious strife of our days; that he never dreamt for a moment of taking the survey of a whole society and covering the entire ground on which it stands with his books.

    Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 Charles Dudley Warner 1864

  • - Germinal got me hooked on Emile Zola when I initially read him.

    Dave Astor: The Cupid-Like Pleasure of Canon Love Dave Astor 2012

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