prolific

• POS: Adjective
• HYPHEN: pro=lif=ic

CIDE DICTIONARY

prolific, a. [F. prolifique, fr. L. proles offspring (from pro for, forward + the root of alere to nourish) + facere to make. See Adult, Old, and Fact.].

•  Having the quality of generating; producing young or fruit; generative; fruitful; productive; -- applied to plants producing fruit, animals producing young, etc.; -- usually with the implied idea of frequent or numerous production; as, a prolific tree, female, and the like.  [1913 Webster]
•  Serving to produce; fruitful of results; active; as, a prolific brain; a controversy prolific of evil.  [1913 Webster]
•  Proliferous.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

prolific, adj.
1 producing many offspring or much output.
2 (often foll. by of) abundantly productive.
3 (often foll. by in) abounding, copious.

Derivative

prolificacy n. prolifically adv. prolificness n.

Etymology

med.L prolificus (as PROLIFEROUS)

THESAURUS

prolific

abounding, abundant, alive with, blooming, bounteous, bountiful, breeding, bristling, bursting, bursting out, conceptive, conceptual, copious, crawling, creative, crowded, crowding, diffuse, diffusive, effusive, esemplastic, extravagant, exuberant, fecund, fertile, flourishing, formless, fructiferous, fruitful, generous, germinal, gushing, gushy, ideational, ideative, imaginative, in profusion, ingenious, inspired, inventive, jam-packed, jammed, lavish, lush, luxuriant, notional, original, originative, overflowing, packed, plenteous, plentiful, pleonastic, populous, pregnant, prodigal, productive, profuse, profusive, proliferating, proliferous, propagating, redundant, reiterative, repetitive, reproducing, reproductive, rich, rife, seminal, shaping, spawning, studded, superabundant, swarming, tautologous, teeming, thick, thick as hail, thick with, thick-coming, thriving, thronged, thronging, uberous, visioned

ROGET THESAURUS

prolific

Utility

N utility, usefulness, efficacy, efficiency, adequacy, service, use, stead, avail, help, applicability, subservience, function, value, worth, money's worth, productiveness, cui bono, utilization, step in the right direction, common weal, commonwealth public good, public interest, utilitarianism, useful, of use, serviceable, proficuous, good for, subservient, conducive, subsidiary, advantageous, profitable, gainful, remunerative, worth one's salt, valuable, prolific, adequate, efficient, efficacious, effective, effectual, expedient, applicable, available, ready, handy, at hand, tangible, commodious, adaptable, of all work, usefully, pro bono publico.

Production

N production, creation, construction, formation, fabrication, manufacture, building, architecture, erection, edification, coinage, diaster, organization, nisus formativus, putting together, establishment, workmanship, performance, achievement, flowering, fructification, inflorescence, bringing forth, parturition, birth, birth-throe, childbirth, delivery, confinement, accouchement, travail, labor, midwifery, obstetrics, geniture, gestation, assimilation, evolution, development, growth, entelechy, fertilization, gemination, germination, heterogamy, genesis, generation, epigenesis, procreation, progeneration, propagation, fecundation, impregnation, albumen, spontaneous generation, archegenesis, archebiosis, biogenesis, abiogenesis, digenesis, dysmerogenesis, eumerogenesis, heterogenesis, oogenesis, merogenesis, metogenesis, monogenesis, parthenogenesis, homogenesis, xenogenesis, authorship, publication, works, opus, oeuvre, biogeny, dissogeny, xenogeny, tocogony, vacuolization, edifice, building, structure, fabric, erection, pile, tower, flower, fruit, produced, producing, productive of, prolific, creative, formative, genetic, genial, genital, pregnant, enceinte, big with, fraught with, in the family way, teeming, parturient, in the straw, brought to bed of, puerperal, puerperous, digenetic, heterogenetic, oogenetic, xenogenetic, ectogenous, gamic, haematobious, sporogenous, sporophorous, architectonic, ex nihilo nihil, fiat lux, materiam superabat opus, nemo dat quod non habet.

Productiveness

N productiveness, fecundity, fertility, luxuriance, uberty, pregnancy, pullulation, fructification, multiplication, propagation, procreation, superfetation, milch cow, rabbit, hydra, warren, seed plot, land flowing with milk and honey, second crop, aftermath, aftercrop, aftergrowth, arrish, eddish, rowen, protoplasm, fertilization, productive, prolific, teeming, teemful, fertile, fruitful, frugiferous, fruit-bearing, fecund, luxuriant, pregnant, uberous, procreant, procreative, generative, life-giving, spermatic, multiparous, omnific, propagable, parturient, profitable.