Meaning & use
unfertilized
Last updated
Meanings
adjectivenot comparablebiologytechnical
Describing an egg cell or ovule that has not been joined by a sperm or pollen, so it cannot develop into a new organism.
Grammar: Not comparable; it is either fertilized or unfertilized. It goes before a noun or after 'be'.
Patterns
- an unfertilized egg
An unfertilized egg cannot grow into a chick.
The eggs sold in supermarkets are usually unfertilized.
If the egg remains unfertilized, the body discards it during the cycle.
adjectivenot comparabletechnical
Describing soil, land or crops that have not been given fertilizer to help plants grow.
Grammar: Used about land and crops: unfertilized fields.
Patterns
- unfertilized soil
The unfertilized field produced a smaller harvest.
Farmers compared the growth of fertilized and unfertilized plants.
Unfertilized soil can run low on nitrogen after a few seasons.
Common combinations
- an unfertilized egg
- An unfertilized egg is what you usually buy to eat.
- unfertilized soil
- Plants in unfertilized soil grew slowly.
- remain unfertilized
- If the ovule remains unfertilized, the flower fades.
- unfertilized plot
- The unfertilized plot served as the control in the experiment.
- leave unfertilized
- They left one patch unfertilized for comparison.
Synonyms and how they differ
- unfertilised
- This is simply the British spelling of the same word.
- infertile
- This describes something that cannot produce offspring or crops at all, while 'unfertilized' only says fertilization has not yet happened.
- unseeded
- This describes land with no seeds sown and does not relate to eggs or fertilizer.
- unfed
- This is a loose, non-technical term for soil, and sounds less precise.
Opposites
Word family
- fertilize verb
- to add sperm or pollen to an egg, or to add nutrients to soil
- fertilizer noun
- a substance added to soil to help plants grow
- fertilization noun
- the joining of egg and sperm or pollen
- fertile adjective
- able to produce young or crops
- fertility noun
- the ability to produce young or crops
Commonly confused: unfertilized or infertile?
unfertilized vs infertile
Infertile means unable to reproduce or grow crops, while unfertilized means that fertilization has not happened yet, even if it could.
Practice
The farmer left one field ____ so he could compare its harvest with the others.
Choose one answer.
'Unfertilized' means no fertilizer was added. 'Infertile' would mean the land cannot produce crops, which is not what is described.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “unfertilized”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.