fecund

comparative more fecund · superlative most fecund · alternative fœcund

1. formalHighly fertile; able to produce offspring.

   The druids […] believed that mistletoe could make barren animals fecund, and that it was an antidote to all poisons.

   2014 December 23, Olivia Judson, “The hemiparasite season [print version: Under the hemiparasite, International New York Times, 24–25 December 2014, p. 7]”, in The New York Times

   1 more example

   The number of children per woman depends, as has been said, on biological and social factors which determine: (1) the frequency of births during a woman's fecund period, and (2) the portion of the fecund period--between puberty and menopause--effectively utilized for reproduction.

   2001, Massimo Livi Bacci, A Concise History of World Population, page 9

   Synonyms: fruitful, battle, childing · Antonyms: barren, infecund

2. figurativelyLeading to new ideas or innovation.

   This idea of Aristotle's has proved marvellously fecund; and in truth it is the only idea covering quite the whole area of cenoscopy that has shown any marked uberosity.

   1906, Charles Sanders Peirce, “The Basis of Pragmatism in the Normative Sciences”, in The Essential Peirce: Selected Philosophical Writings, volume II, page 373

   Synonyms: fertile, productive, prolific · Antonyms: unproductive