fertile: Meaning and Definition of

fer•tile

1. bearing, producing, or capable of producing vegetation, crops, etc., abundantly; prolific: fertile soil.
2. bearing or capable of bearing offspring.
3. abundantly productive: a fertile imagination.
4. producing an abundance (usually fol. by of or in): a land fertile of wheat.
5. conducive to productiveness: fertile showers.
1. fertilized, as an egg or ovum; fecundated.
2. capable of growth or development, as seeds or eggs.
1. capable of producing sexual reproductive structures.
2. capable of causing fertilization, as an anther with fully developed pollen.
3. having spore-bearing organs, as a frond.
8. (of a nuclide) capable of being transmuted into a fissile nuclide by irradiation with neutrons:Cf. fissile (def. 2). Uranium 238 and thorium 232 are fertile nuclides.
9. produced in abundance.