rare. [ad. L. ferācitāt-em, noun of quality f. ferāx: see prec. and -ACITY.] The quality of being feracious; fruitfulness, productiveness. † Of a person: The profit he makes.
c. 1420. Pallad. on Husb., XII. 68. [The olyve] wagged with wynde of feracitee.
1448. MS. Records Grocers Company, Facsimile Copy, 292. That eny seche brocour … Shulde be contributory to the werkes of the place. Euery Brocour after his feraucite.
1650. Elderfield, Tythes, 134. The earth, cursed for our sakes into a proneness to weeds, and most Natural feracity of Briars and Thorns.
1793. Beattie, Moral Sc., IV. i. § 3. 517. Such writers, instead of brittle, would say fragile, instead of fruitfulness, feracity.
1822. Mrs. E. Nathan, Langreath, III. 290. The lack of feracity arising from the lower orders becoming desidiose.
