Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The quality or power of producing abundantly; fruitfulness or fertility.
  • noun Productive or creative power.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun Fruitfulness; the quality of propagating abundantly; particularly, the quality in female animals of producing young in great numbers.
  • noun The power of germinating: as, the seeds of some plants long retain their fecundity.
  • noun Productiveness in general; the power of creating or bringing forth; fertility, as of invention.
  • noun Synonyms Productiveness.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The quality or power of producing fruit; fruitfulness; especially (Biol.), the quality in female organisms of reproducing rapidly and in great numbers.
  • noun The power of germinating; as in seeds.
  • noun The power of bringing forth in abundance; fertility; richness of invention.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Ability to produce offspring.
  • noun Ability to cause growth.
  • noun Number, rate, or capacity of offspring production.
  • noun Rate of production of young by a female.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the intellectual productivity of a creative imagination
  • noun the quality of something that causes or assists healthy growth
  • noun the state of being fertile; capable of producing offspring

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin fēcunditās ("fruitfulness, fertility"), from fēcundus.

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Examples

  • The driving force behind all this fecundity is a terrible pressure I also must consider, the pressure of birth and growth, the pressure that squeezes out the egg and bursts the pupa, that hungers and lusts and drives the creature relentlessly toward its own death.

    Nature & Environment 2006

  • The driving force behind all this fecundity is a terrible pressure I also must consider, the pressure of birth and growth, the pressure that squeezes out the egg and bursts the pupa, that hungers and lusts and drives the creature relentlessly toward its own death.

    Nature & Environment 2006

  • Bad that such a situation has come to pass as IG so well highlights, this woman has so many children by so many fathers, and that her fecundity is funded by us.

    Shannon Matthews « POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG Inspector Gadget 2008

  • It stirred … but not by itself, for fecundity is not enough.

    John M. Ford: gone | Diane Duane's weblog: "Out of Ambit" 2006

  • No, in the plant world, and especially among the flowering plants, fecundity is not an assault on human values.

    Nature & Environment 2006

  • No, in the plant world, and especially among the flowering plants, fecundity is not an assault on human values.

    Nature & Environment 2006

  • In an editorial for the New England Journal of Medicine they declared, "If the decline in fecundity after 30 is as great as the French investigation indicates, new guidelines for counseling on reproduction may have to be formulated."

    Delayed Childbearing 1995

  • In an editorial for the New England Journal of Medicine they declared, "If the decline in fecundity after 30 is as great as the French investigation indicates, new guidelines for counseling on reproduction may have to be formulated."

    Delayed Childbearing 1995

  • In an editorial for the New England Journal of Medicine they declared, "If the decline in fecundity after 30 is as great as the French investigation indicates, new guidelines for counseling on reproduction may have to be formulated."

    Delayed Childbearing 1995

  • One explanation only can be given, namely, that the perfection we call fecundity must needs be found in God the

    The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 15: Tournely-Zwirner 1840-1916 1913

Comments

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  • I'm longing for the old fecundity of my homeland.

    July 8, 2007

  • Despite being bleak and dreary, the winter of 1914 was particularly fecund for Ramanujan, given his work on highly composite numbers.

    September 6, 2007

  • Ramanujan has a pretty crazy story. He came from nowhere and was immediately a math prodigy with no formal training. Stunning, really.

    September 7, 2007

  • Citation on nympho.

    June 22, 2008