1.Biologya. Capable of initiating, sustaining, or supporting reproduction. b. Capable of growing and developing; able to mature: a fertile egg.2.Botany Bearing functional reproductive structures such as seeds or fruit or material such as spores or pollen. 3. Bearing or producing crops or vegetation abundantly; fruitful. 4. Rich in material needed to sustain plant growth: fertile soil.5. Highly or continuously productive; prolific: a fertile imagination; a fertile source of new ideas.6.Physics Capable of producing fissionable material: fertile thorium 232.
ETYMOLOGY:
Middle English fertil, from Old French fertile, from Latin fertilis, from ferre, to bear. See bher-1 in Appendix I.
OTHER FORMS:
fertile·ly —ADVERB fertile·ness —NOUN
SYNONYMS:
fertile, fecund, fruitful, productive, prolific These adjectives mean marked by great productivity: fertile farmland; a fecund imagination; fruitful efforts; a productive meeting; a prolific writer.
fûr
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