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definitions

fecund

[fee-kuhnd, -kuh nd, fek-uhnd, -uh nd]
See more synonyms for fecund on Thesaurus.com
adjective
  1. producing or capable of producing offspring, fruit, vegetation, etc., in abundance; prolific; fruitful: fecund parents; fecund farmland.
  2. very productive or creative intellectually: the fecund years of the Italian Renaissance.

Origin of fecund

1375–1425; late Middle English < Latin fēcundus, equivalent to fē- (see fetus) + -cundus adj. suffix; replacing late Middle English fecounde < Anglo-French
Related formsnon·fe·cund, adjectiveun·fe·cund, adjective
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Related Words for fecund

breeding, fertile, fruitful, pregnant, prolific, rich, teeming, spawning, fructiferous

Examples from the Web for fecund

Contemporary Examples of fecund

  • Best to go with the fecund middle period, three novels sometimes referred to as “The London Trilogy.”

    The Daily Beast logo
    Remedial Reader: The Essential Martin Amis

    Ronald K. Fried

    August 24, 2012

  • Whether he was writing about sex, golf, or life in a small town, the fecund mind who gave the world Rabbit was never at rest.

    The Daily Beast logo
    John Updike's Final Chapter

    Daphne Merkin

    January 29, 2009

Historical Examples of fecund

  • A woman who has one child has proved that she is fecund, but has not proved that she is fertile.

  • A woman with six children has proved that she is not only fecund but fertile.

  • It was bliss, it was the nucleolating of the fecund darkness.

    The Rainbow

    D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

  • The fecund sap, their generative virtue, escapes and diminishes at every gleam.

    The Sea

    Jules Michelet

  • Where is this fecund chaos, rich in worlds, that hides the generations that are to be?

British Dictionary definitions for fecund

fecund

adjective
  1. greatly productive; fertile
  2. intellectually productive; prolific

Word Origin for fecund

C14: from Latin fēcundus; related to Latin fētus offspring
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for fecund
adj.

early 15c., from Middle French fecond, from Latin fecundus "fruitful, fertile, productive," from *fe-kwondo-, suffixed form of Latin root *fe-, corresponding to PIE *dhe(i)- "to suck, suckle," also "produce, yield" (cf. Sanskrit dhayati "sucks," dhayah "nourishing;" Greek thele "mother's breast, nipple," thelys "female, fruitful;" Old Church Slavonic dojiti "to suckle," dojilica "nurse," deti "child;" Lithuanian dele "leech;" Old Prussian dadan "milk;" Gothic daddjan "to suckle;" Old Swedish dia "suckle;" Old High German tila "female breast;" Old Irish denaim "I suck," dinu "lamb").

Also from the same Latin root come felare "to suck;" femina "woman" (*fe-mna-, literally "she who suckles"); felix "happy, auspicious, fruitful;" fetus "offspring, pregnancy;" fenum "hay" (probably literally "produce"); and probably filia/filius "daughter/son," assimilated from *felios, originally "a suckling."

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
fecund in Medicine

fecund

[fē′kənd, fĕk′ənd]
adj.
  1. Capable of producing offspring; fertile.
The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.