Word Study
fertile
CIDE DICTIONARY
fertile, a. [L. fertilis, fr. ferre to bear, produce: cf. F. fertile. See Bear to support.].
- Producing fruit or vegetation in abundance; fruitful; able to produce abundantly; prolific; fecund; productive; rich; inventive; as, fertile land or fields; a fertile mind or imagination. [1913 Webster]"Though he in a fertile climate dwell." [1913 Webster]
- Capable of producing fruit; fruit-bearing; as, fertile flowers. [1913 Webster]
- produced in abundance; plenteous; ample. [1913 Webster]"Henceforth, my early care . . .
Shall tend thee, and the fertile burden ease
Of thy full branches."
OXFORD DICTIONARY
fertile, adj.
1 a (of soil) producing abundant vegetation or crops. b fruitful.
2 a (of a seed, egg, etc.) capable of becoming a new individual. b (of animals and plants) able to conceive young or produce fruit.
3 (of the mind) inventive.
4 (of nuclear material) able to become fissile by the capture of neutrons.
1 a (of soil) producing abundant vegetation or crops. b fruitful.
2 a (of a seed, egg, etc.) capable of becoming a new individual. b (of animals and plants) able to conceive young or produce fruit.
3 (of the mind) inventive.
4 (of nuclear material) able to become fissile by the capture of neutrons.
Idiom
Fertile Crescent the fertile region extending in a crescent shape from the E. Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf.
Derivative
fertility n.
Etymology
ME f. F f. L fertilis
THESAURUS
fertile
abounding, abundant, affluent, all-sufficing, ample, aplenty, blooming, bottomless, bounteous, bountiful, bursting, bursting out, conceptive, conceptual, copious, creative, diffuse, effuse, epidemic, esemplastic, exhaustless, extravagant, exuberant, fat, fecund, flourishing, flush, fructiferous, fructuous, fruitful, full, galore, generative, generous, germinal, ideational, ideative, imaginative, in plenty, in quantity, inexhaustible, ingenious, inspired, inventive, lavish, liberal, lush, luxuriant, many, maximal, much, notional, numerous, opulent, original, originative, overflowing, plenitudinous, plenteous, plentiful, plenty, pregnant, prevailing, prevalent, prodigal, productive, profuse, profusive, proliferous, prolific, rampant, replete, rich, rife, riotous, running over, seminal, shaping, superabundant, swarming, teeming, thriving, uberous, visioned, wealthy, well-found, well-furnished, well-provided, well-stocked, wholesaleROGET THESAURUS
fertile
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.Imagination
N imagination, originality, invention, fancy, inspiration, verve, warm imagination, heated imagination, excited imagination, sanguine imagination, ardent imagination, fiery imagination, boiling imagination, wild imagination, bold imagination, daring imagination, playful imagination, lively imagination, fertile imagination, fancy, mind's eye, such stuff as dreams are made of, ideality, idealism, romanticism, utopianism, castle-building, dreaming, phrensy, frenzy, ecstasy, extasy, calenture, reverie, trance, day dream, golden dream, somnambulism, conception, Vorstellung, excogitation, a fine frenzy, cloudland, dreamland, flight of fancy, fumes of fancy, thick coming fancies, creation of the brain, coinage of the brain, imagery, conceit, maggot, figment, myth, dream, vision, shadow, chimera, phantasm, phantasy, fantasy, fancy, whim, whimsey, whimsy, vagary, rhapsody, romance, gest, geste, extravaganza, air drawn dagger, bugbear, nightmare, flying Dutchman, great sea serpent, man in the moon, castle in the air, pipe dream, pie-in-the-sky, chateau en Espagne, Utopia, Atlantis, happy valley, millennium, fairyland, land of Prester John, kindgom of Micomicon, work of fiction, Arabian nights, le pot au lait, dream of Alnashar, illusion, phantom, Fata Morgana, vapor, stretch of the imagination, mythogenesis, idealist, romanticist, visionary, mopus, romancer, dreamer, somnambulist, rhapsodist, castle-buildier, fanciful projector, imagined, ben trovato, air drawn, airbuilt, imagining, imaginative, original, inventive, creative, fertile, romantic, high flown, flighty, extravagant, fanatic, enthusiastic, unrealistic, Utopian, Quixotic, ideal, unreal, in the clouds, in nubibus, unsubsantial, illusory, fabulous, legendary, mythical, mythic, mythological, chimerical, imaginary, visionary, notional, fancy, fanciful, fantastic, fantastical, whimsical, fairy, fairy-like, gestic, a change came o'er the spirit of my dream, aegri somnia vana, dolphinum appingit sylvis in fluctibus aprum, fancy light from fancy caught, imagination rules the world, l'imagination gallope, le jugement ne va que le pas, musaeo contingens cuncta lepore, tous songes sont mensonges, Wahrheil und Dichtung, DIVISION II COMMUNICATION OF IDEAS.For further exploring for "fertile" in Webster Dictionary Online