impregnate
Americanverb (used with object)
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to make pregnant; cause to be with child or young.
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to fertilize.
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to cause to be permeated or saturated with a substance.
To relieve cold and flu symptoms, impregnate a handkerchief with oils of eucalyptus and mint and inhale its scent.
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to fill the interstices, openings, or cells of (a fine network, or the like) with a substance.
The stainless steel housing contains a ceramic honeycomb impregnated with platinum, rhodium, and palladium.
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to infuse or imbue with some quality or element.
Picasso’s later paintings are impregnated with a certain melancholy.
The air was pleasantly impregnated with the odor of pines.
adjective
verb
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to saturate, soak, or infuse
to impregnate a cloth with detergent
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to imbue or permeate; pervade
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to cause to conceive; make pregnant
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to fertilize (an ovum)
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to make (land, soil, etc) fruitful
adjective
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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impregnationnoun
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impregnatornoun
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reimpregnationnoun
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self-impregnationnoun
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self-impregnatornoun
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reimpregnateverb (used with object)
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impregnatoryadjective
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self-impregnatingadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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impregnatesimple
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impregnatessimple
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have impregnatedperfect
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has impregnatedperfect
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am impregnatingprogressive
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are impregnatingprogressive
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is impregnatingprogressive
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have been impregnatingperfect progressive
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has been impregnatingperfect progressive
Past
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impregnatedsimple
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had impregnatedperfect
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was impregnatingprogressive
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were impregnatingprogressive
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had been impregnatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of impregnate
First recorded in 1535–45; from Late Latin impraegnātus, past participle of impraegnāre “to fertilize, impregnate,” equivalent to im- im- 1 ( def. ) + praegn-, stem of praegnās, variant of praegnāns (stem praegnant-) “pregnant, with child” + -ātus past participle suffix; see origin at pregnant 1 ( def. ), -ate 1 ( def. )
Explanation
Use the verb impregnate to describe what happens when a male of any animal species makes a female pregnant. Human fathers impregnate mothers — otherwise, they would not become fathers. When dog breeders mate two German shepherds, they hope that the male will impregnate the female, or make her pregnant. When your cat has kittens, it's because the neighbor's cat impregnated her several months earlier. The Latin root, impraegnare, comes from in, "into," and praegnare, "pregnant."
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.
See Examples For:
Male jewel beetles, having evolved to respond to the exciting sight, are known to mistake orange peels for potential mates and die in a fruitless attempt to impregnate them.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 25, 2026
When the cow reached maturity, the team unsuccessfully attempted to impregnate her using standard artificial insemination techniques.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 13, 2024
However, four weeks after the male mice stopped receiving YCT529, they were able to impregnate the female mice again.
From Salon ● Feb. 17, 2023
Female sea horses utilize a protruding egg duct to essentially impregnate the male sea horse with her eggs, which he fertilizes and eventually births.
From New York Times ● Jan. 10, 2023
Taint, tānt, v.t. to tinge, moisten, or impregnate with anything noxious: to infect: to stain.—v.i. to be affected with something corrupting.—n. a stain or tincture: infection or corruption: a spot: a moral blemish.—adj.
From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 4 of 4: S-Z and supplements) by Various
Some of the plot elements are similar: In Raising Gazorpazorp, Morty grapples with becoming a single father after he accidentally impregnates an alien robot.
From Time ● Jul. 27, 2017
When eaten, the cysts are destroyed by the digestive juices, and in two or three days the adult worm develops; the male impregnates the female and then dies.
From Time Magazine Archive
This forced feeding thoroughly impregnates the cotton in the fuel chamber of the lighter, minimizes evaporation, and yet permits Lyterlife to feed into the wick as readily as a liquid.
From Time Magazine Archive
Being solicited by her sister mirth, she readily promises her assistance, flies away in a cloud, and impregnates the waters of Bath with new virtues, by which the sickness of Belinda is relieved.
From The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II by Johnson, Samuel
The dew of night impregnates the atmosphere of this delightful summer's night with a delicate freshness.
From The Blacksmith's Hammer, or The Peasant Code A Tale of the Grand Monarch by Sue, Eug?ne
The maggots arrived at her doctor’s office impregnated in a gauze pad.
From Slate ● Feb. 25, 2024
As for the suggestion that Charlotte could have been impregnated by a shark, Lyons said that’s impossible.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 13, 2024
In January 2021, she was impregnated via embryo transfer at the facility, the complaint says.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 1, 2023
It was Sollenberger who broke the allegations of a former girlfriend who said that Walker impregnated her and urged her to have an abortion.
From Salon ● Jan. 6, 2023
In the old days, the winds swept through the irrigated plains around Jalalabad where farmers grew sugarcane, and impregnated the city's air with a sweet scent.
From "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini
TMZ previously reported that Pacino had also been shocked by the pregnancy, given an apparent medical condition that he thought prevented him from impregnating another person.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 15, 2023
Before Russia launched its full-scale invasion, BioTexCom was impregnating about 50 women per month.
From New York Times ● Oct. 16, 2022
In April, a jury awarded over $8 million in a civil lawsuit to families in Colorado who had been impacted by a fertility doctor impregnating dozens of people with his own sperm.
From Salon ● May 22, 2022
Ngandu was accused by a young woman of impregnating her.
From Seattle Times ● May 11, 2021
In that year a patent was taken out by Bethell for preserving timber by impregnating it with the heavy oil from coal-tar.
From Coal and What We Get from It by Meldola, Raphael
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
