Meaning & use
fertile
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Meanings
adjectivecomparable
Of land, rich enough to grow plenty of healthy crops.
Grammar: Used before a noun or after be: fertile soil, the valley is fertile.
Patterns
- fertile land
The river valley has fertile soil that farmers value.
Volcanic ash makes the island surprisingly fertile.
They moved to the fertile plains for better harvests.
adjectivecomparablebiology
Able to produce babies, young or seeds.
Grammar: Biological use: a fertile couple.
Patterns
- fertile period
Doctors explained when a woman is most fertile.
The seeds are fertile and will sprout in spring.
Fertile eggs were kept warm under the lamp.
adjectivecomparablefigurative
Producing many ideas, or giving ideal conditions for something to grow.
Grammar: Figurative use before a noun: a fertile mind.
Patterns
- fertile ground for something
She has a fertile imagination and writes a story a week.
The city was fertile ground for new businesses.
His fertile mind kept coming up with solutions.
Word forms
| comparative | more fertile |
|---|---|
| superlative | most fertile |
Common combinations
- fertile soil
- Fertile soil is dark and full of nutrients.
- fertile ground
- The region became fertile ground for new ideas.
- fertile imagination
- A fertile imagination helps a novelist.
- fertile land
- They farm fertile land beside the river.
- highly fertile
- The valley is highly fertile.
Synonyms and how they differ
- fruitful
- Fruitful stresses productive results, while fertile focuses on the ability to produce.
- productive
- Productive is general and can describe work or time, not only land.
- rich
- Rich describes soil full of nutrients but is less technical than fertile.
- inventive
- Inventive suits a creative mind, where fertile suggests a flow of ideas.
Opposites
Word family
- fertility noun
- the ability to produce young or crops
- fertilize verb
- to make soil richer or join egg and sperm
- fertilizer noun
- a substance added to soil
- infertile adjective
- unable to produce
Commonly confused: fertile or futile?
fertile vs futile
Futile means pointless and has no link to growth, though the words look alike.
Practice
Farmers settled the valley because the soil there was so ___ that crops grew easily.
Choose one answer.
Fertile soil supports crops. Sterile is the opposite, and futile means pointless.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “fertile”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.