fertilize
verb
Simple meaning
To make more creative or intellectually productive.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
furtuhlyzSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈfɝtəlaɪz
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
To make (the soil) more fertile by adding nutrients to it.
Make fertile or productive
figuratively
To make more creative or intellectually productive.
To cause to produce offspring through insemination; to inseminate.
Word at a Glance
- Frequency
- Rare
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Common Patterns and Combinations
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Any substance such as manure or a mixture of nitrates used to make soil more fertile.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
Creation by the physical union of male and female gametes.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
An animal organism in the early stages of growth and differentiation that in higher forms merge into fetal stages but in lower forms terminate in commencement of larval life.
The diploid cell resulting from the union of a haploid spermatozoon and ovum (including the organism that develops from that cell).
Undergo cross-fertilization.
A fertilizer that is derived from animal or vegetable matter.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
The membrane that forms around a fertilized ovum and prevents penetration by additional spermatozoon.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.