fertile

[fur-tl, -tahyl] / ˈfɜr tl, -taɪl /

ADJECTIVE

ready to bear, produce

Synonyms

STRONGEST

abundant arable fruitful lush productive rich

WEAK

bearing black bountiful breeding breedy bringing forth childbearing childing fecund feracious flowering flowing with milk and honey generative gravid hebetic loamy luxuriant plenteous plentiful pregnant procreant producing proliferant prolific puberal pubescent rank spawning teeming uberous vegetative virile with child yielding

Antonyms

STRONGEST

barren impotent sparse unfruitful unproductive

WEAK

fruitless infertile sterile useless

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

The researchers then bred the mice and confirmed that they were fertile.

From Science Daily • Apr. 7, 2026

After 60 days, all that remains is a rich, fertile soil.

From BBC • Mar. 31, 2026

Food stocks provide fertile ground for this exercise.

From Barron's • Mar. 26, 2026

Cities are squalid crime hives that need to be tamed or abandoned in the Sheridanverse, whereas small towns and Western vistas are quaint canvases fertile with possibility.

From Salon • Mar. 23, 2026

For example, quail into whose diet DDT was introduced throughout the breeding season survived and even produced normal numbers of fertile eggs.

From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson

Vocabulary lists containing fertile

Down on the Farm

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Word Generation Social Studies - Ancient Civilizations of Egypt, Greece, Rome

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Mesopotamia - Introductory

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