cross-fertilize
Americanverb (used with object)
verb (used without object)
verb
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of cross-fertilize
First recorded in 1875–80
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:
James Huckenpahler’s digital prints cross-fertilize portraits from the Brady-Handy collection of Civil War-era photography with images from the artist’s computer.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 26, 2018
But the line behind her, filled with a generation of comics who’ve managed to cross-fertilize standup and with a contemporary, queer sensibility, is growing rapidly, and comedy’s evolving apparatus can barely keep pace.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 8, 2018
The practical benefit is that the multiple projects cross-fertilize each other.
From Time ● Oct. 6, 2016
If other barnacles also use ocean currents to cross-fertilize, scientists may have to rework their population models, he says.
From Science Magazine ● Jan. 16, 2013
For instance, a white oak and a bur oak grow near enough for the wind to "cross-fertilize" their pistillate flowers.
From Trees Worth Knowing by Rogers, Julia Ellen
When cross-fertilized using pollen from a neighboring normal plant, their tobacco plants unexpectedly produced small, hollow seeds, much like those seen in popular "seedless" fruits such as watermelons and grapes.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 15, 2023
The German artist Albert Oehlen has been painting up a storm for more than 30 years, producing canvases that promulgate one kind of cross-fertilized chaos or another.
From New York Times ● Jun. 11, 2015
When true-breeding plants were cross-fertilized, in which one parent had yellow seeds and one had green seeds, all of the F1 hybrid offspring had yellow seeds.
From Textbooks ● Apr. 25, 2013
When P plants with contrasting traits were cross-fertilized, all of the offspring were heterozygous for the contrasting trait, meaning their genotype had different alleles for the gene being examined.
From Textbooks ● Apr. 25, 2013
It was in the Eastern Mediterranean that African, Asian, and European civilizations, including the great cultures of Egypt and Mesopotamia, met and cross-fertilized in a vigorous and heady confrontation of prejudices, languages, ideas and gods.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
If things cohere, it is because a massive collaborative energy has swept through the office, cross-fertilizing the different departments.
From New York Times ● Feb. 10, 2020
By including and cross-fertilizing so many distinct but related expressive modes, Chance adds yet another layer to this centuries-old interplay, ever so slightly widening its focus.
From The New Yorker ● May 24, 2016
At the same time, its cross-fertilizing mixture of art and décor, form and function, and politics and aesthetics is too meaty and energetic not to succeed on some fronts.
From New York Times ● Aug. 25, 2011
Over the past 18 months, two groups, one representing Silicon Valley, the other Hollywood, have been meeting at trade shows, visiting labs and quietly ! cross-fertilizing.
From Time Magazine Archive
Lured by the white signals, bees and other nectar-loving insects come to the flowers, cross-fertilizing them while they supply their own needs.
From Trees Worth Knowing by Rogers, Julia Ellen
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.
