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sperm bank

sperm bank

17 3.7
A place that collects and stores sperm for later use to help people have a baby
  • noun
  • /spɜrm bæŋk/
translation icon : banco de semen
  • It's a donor from a sperm bank.
  • go to a sperm bank
  • Donors at our sperm bank
  • deposit in a sperm bank

But that sperm banks are not going to be in this study, you see, because to give to a sperm bank, you have to have a certain quality of sperm.

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Examples

  • One of the most successful sperm banks in the world is called California Cryobank.

  • One of the things a reputable sperm bank should do is screen for some of these conditions; it's a lot less chancy that way than meeting a random person on the internet.

    Blog text (21)
  • I went to one of those sperm banks, you know.

  • Maybe I will go visit a sperm bank.

  • Then I better find a good sperm bank.

  • I went to the sperm bank.

  • If this happens, a man can still father a child by using a sperm bank.

    Academic text (2010)
  • In fact, this woman engineer, where her daughter works, had a baby by using sperm she got from a sperm bank.

    Fiction book (2000)
  • Then you enter that criteria into a sperm bank search engine, which returns a list of matching anonymous males who passed rigorous genetic tests and filled out detailed questionnaires.

    Blog text (32)
  • I went to the sperm bank to donate because I wanted to help couples in need.

Surface Forms

sperm bank singular
sperm banks plural

Morphology

sperm + bank

The meaning 'a facility where sperm is collected and stored' is directly compositional from 'sperm' (male reproductive cell) + 'bank' (a place for storing a supply). This repository sense of 'bank' is common cross-linguistically, so an average B1 learner who knows both constituent meanings will readily infer the MWE meaning.

Etymology

Sperm bank uses bank in the ordinary sense of a safe place to keep something. People used the same idea as in 'blood bank', a place where donations are kept, so today sperm bank means a place where doctors collect and store sperm for later use.