fer´tile|ness

fer|tile «FUR tuhl», adjective.

1. able to produce seeds, fruit, young, etc.: »

a fertile animal or plant.

2. able to develop into a new individual; fertilized: »

Chicks hatch from fertile eggs.

3. a) able to produce much; producing crops easily; rich in things that aid growth and development: »

Fertile soil yields good crops.

b) producing many offspring.

4. Botany. a) fruiting or capable of producing fruit; having a perfect pistil: »

a fertile flower.

b) capable of fertilizing, as an anther with well-developed pollen. c) producing organs that bear spores, as a fern.

5. Physics. not fissionable, but capable of becoming fissionable through the action of bombarding neutrons in a reactor.

6. Figurative. producing ideas; creative: »

Keats had a fertile imagination. Einstein had a fertile mind.

7. Figurative. producing abundance (in or of): »

A mind fertile in schemes. A reforming age is always fertile of imposters (Macaulay).

8. promoting fertility or productivity: »

fertile showers.

9. Obsolete. abundant.

╂[< Old French fertil, learned borrowing from Latin fertilis < ferre to bear]

–fer´tile|ly, adverb.

–fer´tile|ness, noun.

Synonym Study 1, 6 Fertile, productive mean able to produce much. Fertile emphasizes the power of producing and applies to things in which seeds or ideas can take root and grow: »

The seed fell on fertile ground. He has a fertile imagination.

Productive suggests bringing forth in abundance: »

Those fruit trees are very productive. He is a productive writer.