fertilize
Americanverb (used with object)
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fertilizes,
present (3rd person singular)
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fertilized,
past participle, past
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fertilizing
present participle
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Biology.
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to render (the female gamete) capable of development by uniting it with the male gamete.
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to fecundate or impregnate (an animal or plant).
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to make fertile; enrich.
to fertilize farmland.
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to make productive.
verb
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to provide (an animal, plant, or egg cell) with sperm or pollen to bring about fertilization
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to supply (soil or water) with mineral and organic nutrients to aid the growth of plants
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to make fertile or productive
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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fertilizabilitynoun
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overfertilizeverb (used with object)
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prefertilizeverb (used with object)
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refertilizeverb (used with object)
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fertilizableadjective
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refertilizableadjective
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unfertilizableadjective
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unfertilizedadjective
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unfertilizingadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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fertilizesimple
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fertilizessimple
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have fertilizedperfect
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has fertilizedperfect
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am fertilizingprogressive
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are fertilizingprogressive
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is fertilizingprogressive
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have been fertilizingperfect progressive
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has been fertilizingperfect progressive
Past
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fertilizedsimple
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had fertilizedperfect
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was fertilizingprogressive
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were fertilizingprogressive
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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
In addition to rising fuel costs, farmers in the Central Valley say they are stockpiling fertilizer and looking for otherways to fertilize their crops.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 29, 2026
He will spread more of what my dad used to fertilize his roses.
From Salon ● Feb. 20, 2026
But that was the idea: Give them twenty-four hours to eat the grass and fertilize it with their droppings, and then move them onto fresh ground.
From "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan
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
By examining infrared light -- wavelengths invisible to the naked eye -- these incredibly precise images reveal how dust fertilizes the universe after being heated by both massive young stars and surrounding interstellar space radiation.
From Science Daily ● Jan. 17, 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
We begin our lives as single fertilized eggs, which repeatedly divide and sequentially specialize into the 30 trillion or so cells that make up the adult body.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 20, 2026
The flies develop quickly in flowing waters, where females will lay 200 to 500 fertilized eggs at a time.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 27, 2026
The results strongly suggest the crops were fertilized with seabird guano, which is rich in nitrogen because seabirds feed on marine life.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 7, 2026
The female carries the fertilized eggs for about 30 days.
From Slate ● Aug. 19, 2025
Under the microscopes, their long tails furiously lashing, spermatozoa were burrowing head first into eggs; and, fertilized, the eggs were expanding, dividing, or if bokanovskified, budding and breaking up into whole populations of separate embryos.
From "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley
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
In clinical terms, IVF involves removing eggs from a woman, fertilizing them in a lab with sperm and implanting embryos in the uterus.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 14, 2025
As the Washington Post noted, "Emergency contraceptive pills such as Plan B and Ella work by inhibiting or delaying ovulation, thereby preventing sperm from fertilizing the egg."
From Salon ● Jun. 6, 2024
The process involves collecting eggs from ovaries and fertilizing them with sperm in a lab, then implanting them in a uterus.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 31, 2024
So little evidence has emerged of Indians fertilizing with fish that some archaeologists believe that Tisquantum actually picked up the idea from European farmers.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
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.
