fructify

present singular third person fructifies · participle present fructifying · participle past fructified · past fructified

1. intransitiveTo bear fruit; to generate useful products or ideas.

   Then one evening early in November Beedel rang Mr Carrados up. The blind man happened to take the call himself, and at the first words he knew that the dull, patient shadowing of weeks was about to fructify.

   1927, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], Max Carrados Mysteries

   2 more examples

   Atop the [Palmito] tree is a pith, in taſte better then Cabbage; and eating it takes avvay the future benefit of grovvth or fructifying, theſe and the Date-tree thriue not, except the male and female be vnited, and haue copulation: the ſhe is only fruitfull.

   1634, T[homas] H[erbert], “Mohelia, Its Description”, in A Relation of Some Yeares Trauaile, Begunne Anno 1626. into Afrique and the Greater Asia, […], London: […] William Stansby, and Jacob Bloome, →OCLC, page 24

   It is good to detect hints of a more aggressive attitude from the B.T.C. in face of constant reminders of accumulated deficits and niggling for economies before modernisation schemes have had a chance fully to fructify […].

   1959 August, “Talking of Trains: Reappraisal is completed”, in Trains Illustrated, page 345

2. transitiveTo make productive or fruitful.

   He slew the Bull (symbol of the gross Earth which the sunlight fructifies).

   1920, Edward Carpenter, Pagan and Christian Creeds, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., published 1921, page 21

   1 more example

   When fruit trees are to be planted it is good practice to plant alternate rows of different varieties of the same fruit, because the pollen of one variety is often wanted to fructify or fertilise the flowers of another.

   1901 May 10, “Gleanings”, in The Agricultural Journal and Mining Record, volume 4, number 5, page 136