Wordnet 3.0
NOUN (1)
1.
a theory (popular in the 18th century and now discredited) that an individual develops by simple enlargement of a tiny fully formed organism (a homunculus) that exists in the germ cell;
[syn: preformation, theory of preformation]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Preformation \Pre`for*ma"tion\, n. (Biol.)
An old theory of the pre["e]xistence of germs. Cf.
Embo[^i]tement.
[1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
preformation
n 1: a theory (popular in the 18th century and now discredited)
that an individual develops by simple enlargement of a tiny
fully formed organism (a homunculus) that exists in the
germ cell [syn: preformation, theory of preformation]