fecundity
Americannoun
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the quality of being fecund; capacity, especially in female animals, of producing young in great numbers.
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fruitfulness or fertility, as of the earth.
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the capacity of abundant production.
fecundity of imagination.
noun
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fertility; fruitfulness
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intellectual fruitfulness; creativity
Other Word Forms
- nonfecundity noun
- superfecundity noun
Etymology
Origin of fecundity
1375–1425; late Middle English < Latin fēcunditās fruitfulness, fertility. See fecund, -ity
Explanation
Fecundity means fruitfulness and fertility, the ability to produce abundant healthy growth or offspring. What a wonderful word fecundity is! It refers to a powerful productivity, usually in the area of natural growth, either from the earth or by human reproduction. But it can also be used to describe great mental ability and creativity, the ability to create intellectual products. In any case, fecundity has a positive sense, suggesting healthy growth of life-forms and mental abilities.
Vocabulary lists containing fecundity
The Time Machine
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Little Fires Everywhere
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"Reality Check," Vocabulary from the short story
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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.
Birth control, Ms. Low notes, has allowed couples to date longer, “which is much costlier to women with a shorter period of fecundity than it is for the men.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 11, 2025
Miranda July’s book ‘All Fours,’ about a Los Angeles woman’s reckoning with perimenopause, imagines the end of fecundity as a joyful second flowering.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 27, 2025
The tests also found that adult male fish exposed to bifenthrin an cyhalothrin as larvae had smaller gonads than the control group, while the second generation had increased fecundity.
From Science Daily • Feb. 20, 2024
But completely knocking out all these genes would likely harm chickens’ health, as the proteins play a role in development and fecundity.
From Science Magazine • Oct. 10, 2023
The fecundity of many forms of life is almost beyond our power to imagine, though now and then we have suggestive glimpses.
From "Silent Spring" by Rachel Carson
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.
