impregnate
Americanverb (used with object)
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to make pregnant; cause to be with child or young.
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to fertilize.
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to cause to be permeated or saturated with a substance.
To relieve cold and flu symptoms, impregnate a handkerchief with oils of eucalyptus and mint and inhale its scent.
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to fill the interstices, openings, or cells of (a fine network, or the like) with a substance.
The stainless steel housing contains a ceramic honeycomb impregnated with platinum, rhodium, and palladium.
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to infuse or imbue with some quality or element.
Picasso’s later paintings are impregnated with a certain melancholy.
The air was pleasantly impregnated with the odor of pines.
adjective
verb
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to saturate, soak, or infuse
to impregnate a cloth with detergent
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to imbue or permeate; pervade
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to cause to conceive; make pregnant
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to fertilize (an ovum)
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to make (land, soil, etc) fruitful
adjective
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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impregnationnoun
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impregnatornoun
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reimpregnationnoun
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self-impregnationnoun
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self-impregnatornoun
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reimpregnateverb (used with object)
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impregnatoryadjective
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self-impregnatingadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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impregnatesimple
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impregnatessimple
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have impregnatedperfect
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has impregnatedperfect
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am impregnatingprogressive
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are impregnatingprogressive
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is impregnatingprogressive
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have been impregnatingperfect progressive
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has been impregnatingperfect progressive
Past
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impregnatedsimple
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had impregnatedperfect
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was impregnatingprogressive
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were impregnatingprogressive
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had been impregnatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of impregnate
First recorded in 1535–45; from Late Latin impraegnātus, past participle of impraegnāre “to fertilize, impregnate,” equivalent to im- im- 1 ( def. ) + praegn-, stem of praegnās, variant of praegnāns (stem praegnant-) “pregnant, with child” + -ātus past participle suffix; see origin at pregnant 1 ( def. ), -ate 1 ( def. )
Explanation
Use the verb impregnate to describe what happens when a male of any animal species makes a female pregnant. Human fathers impregnate mothers — otherwise, they would not become fathers. When dog breeders mate two German shepherds, they hope that the male will impregnate the female, or make her pregnant. When your cat has kittens, it's because the neighbor's cat impregnated her several months earlier. The Latin root, impraegnare, comes from in, "into," and praegnare, "pregnant."
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:
Male jewel beetles, having evolved to respond to the exciting sight, are known to mistake orange peels for potential mates and die in a fruitless attempt to impregnate them.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 25, 2026
When the cow reached maturity, the team unsuccessfully attempted to impregnate her using standard artificial insemination techniques.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 13, 2024
Female sea horses utilize a protruding egg duct to essentially impregnate the male sea horse with her eggs, which he fertilizes and eventually births.
From New York Times ● Jan. 10, 2023
Four weeks after the male mice stopped receiving YCT529, they were able to impregnate the female mice again.
From Salon ● Mar. 24, 2022
Nay, more, may not these ions or corpuscles be atoms of electricity, and, being a thousand times smaller than atoms of matter, impregnate them with positive and negative force?
From The Universe a Vast Electric Organism by Warder, George Woodward
Some of the plot elements are similar: In Raising Gazorpazorp, Morty grapples with becoming a single father after he accidentally impregnates an alien robot.
From Time ● Jul. 27, 2017
When eaten, the cysts are destroyed by the digestive juices, and in two or three days the adult worm develops; the male impregnates the female and then dies.
From Time Magazine Archive
This forced feeding thoroughly impregnates the cotton in the fuel chamber of the lighter, minimizes evaporation, and yet permits Lyterlife to feed into the wick as readily as a liquid.
From Time Magazine Archive
In youth, love impregnates every word, insinuates itself into the very gestures, plunges into the glance, exhales at every pore, saturates the air we breathe.
From Garrick's Pupil by Filon, Auguston
At last, an unmistakable elasticity impregnates the place.
From Peeps at People by Holliday, Robert Cortes
“The inmate Carroll impregnated is not one of the two victims in this case,” Assistant District Attorney Eric DuTemple said in an email this week.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
The medical profession successfully argued for an exemption from the wet wipe ban, arguing that non-plastic wipes absorb too much of the detergents and disinfectants impregnated in them, with potential consequences for patient safety.
From BBC ● Nov. 17, 2025
The maggots arrived at her doctor’s office impregnated in a gauze pad.
From Slate ● Feb. 25, 2024
As for the suggestion that Charlotte could have been impregnated by a shark, Lyons said that’s impossible.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 13, 2024
He left the dining room impregnated with the penetrating fragrance of rose water that she had sprinkled on his head so that she could follow his tracks through the house.
From "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
TMZ previously reported that Pacino had also been shocked by the pregnancy, given an apparent medical condition that he thought prevented him from impregnating another person.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 15, 2023
In April, a jury awarded over $8 million in a civil lawsuit to families in Colorado who had been impacted by a fertility doctor impregnating dozens of people with his own sperm.
From Salon ● May 22, 2022
Ngandu was accused by a young woman of impregnating her.
From Seattle Times ● May 11, 2021
Jaime Phillips, a woman apparently working for a conservative watchdog group called Project Veritas, contacted the Post with a bogus story about Moore impregnating her when she was 15.
From Slate ● Nov. 29, 2017
And so admirably did she succeed in impregnating her mind with virulent dislike of the man, that she afforded him no end of amusement.
From Joan Thursday by Vance, Louis Joseph
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.
