a. Forms: 5–7 fecond, 5 fecounde, 7 foecund, 6– fecund. [a. F. fecond, ad. L. fēcundus fruitful. In the 16th c. the spelling was refashioned after Lat.]
1. Of animals, the earth, etc.: Capable of producing offspring or vegetable growth abundantly; prolific, fertile. In lit. sense somewhat arch.
c. 1420. Pallad. on Husb., I. 77.
| Or make a dyche, and yf the moolde abounde | |
| And wol not in agayne, it is fecounde. | |
| Ibid., I. 985. | |
| Sette that uppe: that wol make all fecundare | |
| On every side as ferre as it may se. |
1537. trans. Latimer’s 2nd Serm. bef. Convocation, i. 42. He was so fecund a father, and had gotten so many children.
1671. Grew, The Anatomy of Plants, I. iv. App. (1682), 33. Thorns, from the outer, and less fecund Part.
1676. Phil. Trans., II. 594. Animals fecond enough.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., 489. Urania or the Heavenly Venus, was sometimes amongst the Pagans a Name for the Supreme Deity, as that which is the most Amiable Being, and First Pulchritude, the most Benign and Fecund Begetter of all things, and the constant Harmonizer of the whole World.
1721. R. Bradley, Wks. Nature, 30. The Nourishment and Growth of the Embrio Seed after its Germe is made fecund.
b. transf. and fig.
c. 1400. Usk, The Testament of Love, III. (1560), 294/2. Al your workes be cleped fecond.
1793. J. Williams, Authentic Mem. Warren Hastings, 54. The most considerable … of Mr. Burke’s political apophthegms seem to quit their fecund parent … when they are matured.
1849. Ruskin, Sev. Lamps, vi. § 4. 166. This is … fecund of other fault and misfortune.
1854. Fraser’s Mag., XLIX. 19. The printing presses of Paris … so prolific and fecund in all kind of fruit.
1884. The Saturday Review, LVII. 14 June, 784/2. From the roll of his [Sir Julius Benedict’s] friendship scarcely a great name in music of the past fifty years is absent; his youth is enriched with memories of his great master, the poet of composers, and of Schubert and Beethoven; his career corresponds with the most brilliant and fecund era in the history of music.
2. Producing fertility, fertilizing. Cf. FECUNDITY 5.
1686. J. Goad, Astro-meteorologica, II. x. 289. We are troubled with Aquatique Signs, as if our Aspect were most Foecund.
1827. J. F. Cooper, The Prairie, II. xv. 236. The water moistened a small swale that lay beneath the spot, which yielded, in return for the fecund gift a scanty growth of grass.
Hence Fecundness, the state of being fecund.
1727. in Bailey, vol. II.
