fecundity

American  

[fi-kuhn-di-tee] / fɪˈkʌn dɪ ti /

noun

1. the quality of being fecund; capacity, especially in female animals, of producing young in great numbers.

2. fruitfulness or fertility, as of the earth.

3. the capacity of abundant production.

   fecundity of imagination.

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fecundity British  

/ fɪˈkʌndɪtɪ /

noun

1. fertility; fruitfulness

2. intellectual fruitfulness; creativity

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Other Word Forms

• nonfecundity noun
• superfecundity noun

Etymology

Origin of fecundity

1375–1425; late Middle English < Latin fēcunditās fruitfulness, fertility. See fecund, -ity

Example Sentences

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

They could also help scientists better understand our planet’s fecundity and predict how lifeforms may use carbon in the future.

From Science Magazine • Oct. 17, 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