[ad. L. sterilitās, f. sterili-s STERILE a. Cf. F. stérilité, It. sterilità.] The quality of being sterile, barrenness.
1. Unproductiveness of the earth.
1426. Lydg., De Guil. Pilgr., 23780. Afterward … Vij yeres of Sterylite folwed on,… wherof Ioseph took good hed long a-forn.
1483. Caxton, Golden Leg., 283/2. There by his merytes he chaced awey the Sterylyte and barrynes that was in that Countre.
1580. Reg. Privy Council Scot., III. 294. The barrennes and sterilitie of the ground.
1653. W. Ramesey, Astrol. Restored, 216. From whence you are to inquire of the fertility and sterility of the Earth.
a. 1676. Hale, Prim. Orig. Man. (1677), 225. There have been great Devastations and Decrements of Mankind by … Plagues and Epidemical Diseases, Famines, and Sterilities of great parts of the World.
1750. Johnson, Rambler, No. 33, ¶ 5. I will teach you to remedy the sterility of the earth.
1813. Sir H. Davy, Agric. Chem., viii. (1814), 359. Sicily was the granary of Italy and the quantity of corn carried off from it by the Romans is probably a chief cause of its present sterility.
1841. Elphinstone, Hist. India, II. 149. Máldeó, rája of that country,… derived additional strength from the sterility of his territory.
1865. Geikie, Scen. & Geol. Scot., viii. 211. One looks in vain for a tree or field or patch of green, to relieve the sterility of these lonely shores.
2. Incapacity for producing offspring (chiefly said of the female).
1535. Stewart, Cron. Scot., II. 250. His wyffe ay in sterilitie, All his dais scho wes withoutin cheild.
1568. Grafton, Chron., II. 837. He complayned … of the infortunate sterylitie and barennesse of hys wyfe.
1605. Shaks., Lear, I. iv. 300. Heare Nature,… Into her Wombe conuey stirrility.
1708. W. King, Cookery, Let. ix. 149. Varro, the great Roman Antiquary, tells us how to do it by burning of their Spurs; which occasioning their Sterility, makes them Capons in effect.
1876. Gross, Dis. Urin. Bladder, 271. Impotence and Sterility … are very rare after lateral lithotomy.
1883. H. Drummond, Nat. Law in Spir. W. (ed. 2), Pref. p. xiii. Inappropriate Hybridism is checked by the Law of Sterility.
† b. Of water: Unproductiveness of anything living. Obs.
1707. Curios. in Husb. & Gard., 171. The horrible Sterility of the Sea of Sodom…. No Animal can live in it.
c. Of plants: Incapacity of reproduction.
1837. P. Keith, Bot. Lex., 205. The cause of the sterility of hybrids is not well known.
1866. Treas. Bot., 1098/2. Far more frequently, however, sterility arises from outward agents, from the effect of long-continued drought or moisture, [etc.].
3. fig. Mental or spiritual barrenness; unproductiveness of results.
1665. Glanvill, Scepsis Sci., xxi. 133. Its experienced sterility through so many hundred years, drives hope to desperation.
a. 1678. Woodhead, Holy Living (1688), 194. Yet where is a sterility in thinking on any subject, there is a necessity to change it.
1716. Pope, Iliad, II. Ess. Homer’s Battles, 323. Yet one cannot ascribe this to any Sterility of Expression, but to the Genius of his Times, that delighted in those reiterated Verses.
1782. V. Knox, Ess., lx. (1819), II. 16. Such has been the sterility of epigrammatic genius in our country.
1846. Grote, Greece (1862), II. 13. Sterility of intellect.
1891. Speaker, 11 July, 36/2. The fear is … that public life may be stricken with sterility in consequence of this veto.
4. The state of being free from micro-organisms.
1877. Tyndall, Ess. Floating Matter Air (1881), 133. The observed sterility was not due to any lack of nutritive power in the infusion.
1899. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., VII. 550. The sterility in this case was probably due to the fact that death occurred nearly four months after the onset of the disease.
