cross-pollinate
Americanverb (used with object)
verb
Etymology
Origin of cross-pollinate
First recorded in 1895–1900
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:
The bank thinks it can get its various lines of business—from consumer deposits to wealth management to investment banking—to cross-pollinate faster and fuel profits.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 12, 2025
We cross-pollinate plants that have the attributes that we’re looking for.
From Scientific American ● Oct. 26, 2023
"One of the Madonna's skills is that she's able to cross-pollinate ideas between different projects," said Price.
From BBC ● Oct. 11, 2023
In the ’90s, he held regular gatherings at his Angelino Heights home where community activists like the late Levi Kingston would cross-pollinate with emerging young essayists such as Lynell George and Rubén Martínez.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 25, 2022
They were virtually impossible to cross-pollinate and rarely generated hybrids.
From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee
He travelled across India collecting seeds and brought them back to his farm where he cross-pollinated them.
From BBC ● May 25, 2026
Soon, plants grown from the old seeds were cross-pollinated with modern, high-yielding varieties, but it took years for any perceptible changes to really take hold.
From Salon ● Nov. 20, 2023
Scientists could collect seeds and test whether they might be cross-pollinated to produce fertile offspring.
From Textbooks ● Jun. 9, 2022
Mr. Abloh isn’t just getting a cool-sounding new gig; he’s getting an equity stake in whatever cross-pollinated projects he develops.
From New York Times ● Jul. 20, 2021
Recall that most wild plants either are regularly cross-pollinated hermaphrodites or consist of separate male and female individuals that inevitably depend on another individual for pollination.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
Nuccio’s Nurseries offers more than 500 varieties of camellias, many created by cross-pollinating bees and then nurtured by the owners.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 2, 2025
“And create some cohesiveness between sports franchises crossing over and cross-pollinating those fan bases and creating momentum where you can lean in on a whole week of content rather than just one or two nights.”
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 15, 2023
In that same year, Markus Kobelt — a nurseryman in Buchs, Switzerland — developed his acclaimed Redlove apples after cross-pollinating red-fleshed varieties with Royal Gala and Braeburn apples.
From Salon ● Nov. 25, 2021
“We heard a lot of great feedback, and we saw audiences cross-pollinating between the two art forms.”
From Washington Post ● Mar. 5, 2020
The amount of pollen produced by the Reed variety has always been considered ample for cross-pollinating the Potomac, even though the former has been a light producer of catkins.
From Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Forty-Second Annual Meeting Urbana, Illinois, August 28, 29 and 30, 1951 by Northern Nut Growers Association
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