Fertile

//ˈfɜːtaɪl// adj, name

adj, name ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Adjective

1
Of land, etc.: capable of growing abundant crops; productive.
2
Of one's imagination, etc.: active, productive, prolific. figuratively
3
Capable of reproducing; fecund, fruitful.
"Most women at the age of fifty are not fertile."
4
Capable of developing past the egg stage.
5
Not itself fissile, but able to be converted into a fissile material by irradiation in a reactor.
"There are two basic fertile materials: uranium-238 and thorium-232."

Adjective

1
capable of reproducing wordnet
2
marked by great fruitfulness wordnet
3
bearing in abundance especially offspring wordnet
4
intellectually productive wordnet

Proper Noun

1
A city and township in Iowa.
2
A city in Minnesota.

Synonyms

fecund productive prolific abounding abundant affluent

Antonyms

barren desolate infertile sterile

Example

"The settlers learned that the land in the valley was fertile."

Etymology

From Middle English, from Middle French fertile, from Old French fertile, from Latin fertilis (“fruitful, fertile”), from ferō (“I bear, carry”).

Related phrases

Fertile Belt Fertile Crescent Fertile Valley cross-fertile fertile as a turtle self-fertile

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.