fertilize
Americanverb (used with object)
-
Biology.
-
to render (the female gamete) capable of development by uniting it with the male gamete.
-
to fecundate or impregnate (an animal or plant).
-
-
to make fertile; enrich.
to fertilize farmland.
-
to make productive.
verb
-
to provide (an animal, plant, or egg cell) with sperm or pollen to bring about fertilization
-
to supply (soil or water) with mineral and organic nutrients to aid the growth of plants
-
to make fertile or productive
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
-
fertilizabilitynoun
-
overfertilizeverb (used with object)
-
prefertilizeverb (used with object)
-
refertilizeverb (used with object)
-
fertilizableadjective
-
refertilizableadjective
-
unfertilizableadjective
-
unfertilizedadjective
-
unfertilizingadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
fertilizesimple
-
fertilizessimple
-
have fertilizedperfect
-
has fertilizedperfect
-
am fertilizingprogressive
-
are fertilizingprogressive
-
is fertilizingprogressive
-
have been fertilizingperfect progressive
-
has been fertilizingperfect progressive
Past
-
fertilizedsimple
-
had fertilizedperfect
-
was fertilizingprogressive
-
were fertilizingprogressive
-
had been fertilizingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of fertilize
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:
And “if they fertilize the lawn around the pool, all that water that’s running in there is adding nitrogen and phosphorus,” she says.
From Slate ● Jun. 27, 2026
He said he already had paid $50,000 more than last year to fertilize his corn fields in the past 30 days.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 3, 2026
Farmers, who used herring to fertilize their fields and subsequently attracted gulls to their farms, joined in the complaints, Anderson adds.
From Salon ● Oct. 20, 2024
Surface water, for example, could have runoff that includes nitrate used to fertilize land in agricultural areas.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 22, 2024
I could see it happening: the flowers are turned upward, and if the sraf were falling straight down, it would enter their petals and fertilize them like pollen from the stars.
From "The Amber Spyglass" by Philip Pullman
Dusky farmerfish in East Asia grow “crops” of red algae by assiduously “weeding out less palatable foods” and have effectively domesticated a type of shrimp whose waste fertilizes the algae and boosts yields.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 19, 2026
The same phosphorus that fertilizes the thriving agriculture of the Midwest is also responsible for a vast "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico near the Mississippi Delta.
From Science Daily ● Feb. 7, 2024
The business-nature of professional sports continually fertilizes that feeling.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 12, 2023
In mammals, offspring are produced when males’ sperm fertilizes females’ eggs.
From Scientific American ● Aug. 1, 2023
The chicken manure fertilizes the grass, supplying all the nitrogen it needs.
From "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan
He was enamored with the Russian giants, writing in 1953 that “those fertilized by both Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, who understand them both equally well,” have “an always formidable nature, with themselves and with others.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 8, 2026
After four hours in simulated zero gravity, the number of successfully fertilized mouse eggs dropped by 30 per cent compared to normal Earth conditions.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 29, 2026
They could then be fertilized before journey’s end, and the babies raised “under the tutelage of cybernetic nurses who would teach them their inheritance and their destiny when they were capable of understanding it.”
From Slate ● Dec. 9, 2025
"We have these fertilized eggs from many, many different genetic backgrounds and we raise them over a series of days until we have coral babies, coral teenagers," she explains.
From BBC ● Jul. 22, 2025
In a nearby room lit by dim red lights, she had watched another gloved worker look through trays of stacked fertilized eggs.
From "Son" by Lois Lowry
The additional effort he puts in—seeding, watering, fertilizing, aerating—is a reflection of his professional work ethic.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 9, 2026
“We’re probably fertilizing half the acres we normally would,” he said.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 30, 2026
The dung beetle, which disperses seeds as it rolls its dung balls, fertilizing topsoil and enhancing biodiversity and engineering its environment, normally orients itself using the Milky Way and the moon.
From Salon ● Apr. 15, 2025
IVF is a common procedure for those facing infertility that involves collecting eggs from ovaries, fertilizing them with sperm in a lab and implanting them in a uterus.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 29, 2024
It was designed to roam the fields, planting and fertilizing and harvesting the feed crops.
From "The Wild Robot Escapes" by Peter Brown
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.
