a. Forms: 5–6 fertyl(e, -yll, 7–8 fertil(l, (6 fartyll, 6–7 firtile, -ill, 7 furtill, fertle), 5– fertile. [a. OF. fertil (Fr. fertile = Pr. fertil), ad. L. fertilis, f. ferre to bear.]
1. Bearing or producing in abundance; fruitful, prolific. Const. of, in, rarely † to. a. lit. of the soil, a district or region, rarely of animals.
c. 1460. Fortescue, Abs. & Lim. Mon., iii. Dwellyn thai in on the most fertile reaume of the worlde.
1484. Caxton, Æsop, V. viii. This yere shalle be the most temperate and the moost fertyle of alle maner of corne that euer thow sawest.
1581. Sidney, Apol. Poetrie (Arb.), 62. As the firtilest ground must bee manured, so must the highest flying wit, have a Dedalus to guide him.
1624. Capt. Smith, Virginia, III. xi. 87. By the riuer the ground was good, and exceeding furtill.
1785. Sarah Fielding, Ophelia, II. ix. Any Plants that arise from so bad a Soil as my Imagination, which is not very fertile of any Thing but Weeds.
1832. Ht. Martineau, Life in Wilds, i. 3. The plains which stretch out towards the north at a great height above the sea are fertile in native plants when uncultivated, and richly repay the toil of the farmer.
1853. C. Brontë, Villette, xv. She was on the route of beautiful scenery; these September suns shone for her on fertile plains, where harvest and vintage matured under their mellow beam.
b. transf. and fig.
1481. Caxton, Mirrour of the World, II. iv. 68. It [Probane, Ceylon] is moche plenteuous of gold and syluer, and moche fertyle of other thynges.
1603. Drayton, Odes, ii. 43.
| That Spray to fame so fertle, | |
| The Louer-crowning Mirtle. |
1730. A. Gordon, Maffei’s Amphith., 23. Augustus, he, as Victor Junius relates, being of a fertile and jovial Disposition, was a great Admirer of Public Shews; particularly, of seeing wild Beasts fight.
1791. Gentl. Mag., 26/2. The offspring of his fertile imagination.
1819. T. Jefferson, Autobiog., Wks. 1859, I. 121. He [Samuel Adams] was truly a great man, wise in council, fertile in resources, immoveable in his purposes, and had, I think, a greater share than any other member, in advising and directing our measures, in the Northern war.
1848. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., I. 216. One family, singularly fertile of great men, had gradually obtained a large and somewhat indefinite authority.
1869. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), III. xiv. 335. England was a land perilous to attack; it was a land fertile in warriors.
2. Causing or tending to promote fertility.
1597. Bp. Hall, Sat. I. ii.
| The coole streame that tooke his endles name, | |
| From out the fertile hoofe of winged steed. |
1621. Burton, Anat. Mel., II. ii. III. 248. The Brise and cooling blasts in some parts, as Acosta describes, most pleasant and fertile.
1657. R. Austen, A Treatise of Fruit-Trees, I. 71. To lay Pigeons dung, Hens dung, Sheeps dung, (or the like stuffe, that is very hot, and fertill,) to the roots will much help the Trees.
1847. Emerson, Poems, Musketaquid, Wks. (Bohn), I. 485. They thank the spring-flood for its fertile slime.
fig. 1596. Shaks., 2 Hen. IV., IV. iii. 131. With excellent endeavour of drinking good, and good store of Fertile Sherris, that he is become very hot, and valiant.
† 3. Copiously produced, abundant. Obs.
1601. Shaks., Twel. N., I. v. 274.
| Ol. How does he loue me? | |
| Vio. With adorations, fertill teares, | |
| With groanes that thunder loue, with sighes of fire. |
1667. Milton, P. L., IX. 801.
| Shall tend thee, and the fertil burden ease | |
| Of thy full branches offer’d free to all. |
4. Comb. fertile-fresh a., having luxuriant foliage; fertile-headed a., (a) many headed; (b) rich in expedients.
1598. Shaks., Merry W., V. v. 72.
| Th’expressure that it beares, Greene let it be, | |
| More fertile-fresh then all the Field to see. |
1632. Massinger & Field, Fatal Dowry, I. i.
| One Cerberus there | |
| Forbids the passage, in our courts a thousand, | |
| As loud and fertile-headed. |
1754. J. Shebbeare, Matrimony (1766), I. 230. The fertile-headed Woman … whipt a ten-peck Bag over her Gallant’s Head.
Hence † Fertile v. Obs.–1 = FERTILIZE v.; Fertilely adv.; Fertileness rare = FERTILITY.
1580. Sidney, Arcadia (1622), 155. Who … could not but fertilly requite his fathers fatherly education. Ibid. (1581), Apol. Poetrie (Arb.), 19. The fertilnes of the Italian wit.
1613. Markham, English Husbandman, II. I. v. (1635), 27. Many of them [flowers] will be twenty, and foure and twenty inches in compasse, according to the fertilenesse of the soyle in which they grow.
1627–47. Feltham, Resolves, I. lxxxi. 124. He that hopes too much, shall coozen himself at last; especially, if his industry goes not along to fertile it.
1661–6. Wood, City of Oxford (Oxf. Hist. Soc.), I. 395. The meedes adjoyning are fertilly soyled.
