fecundity
nounUK, US /fɪˈkʌndɪtɪ/
Etymology From Latin fēcunditās (“fruitfulness, fertility”), from fēcundus, equivalent to fecund + -ity.
1
Usually Ability to produce offspring.
- In the early days the reviewers compared him to the late Douglas Adams, but then Terry went on to write books as enthusiastically as Douglas avoided writing them, and now, if there is any comparison to be made of anything from the formal rules of a Pratchett novel to the sheer prolific fecundity of the man, it might be to P. G. Wodehouse.2006, Neil Gaiman, “Neil Gaiman on Terry Pratchett”, in Good Omens, Corgi, page 410:
2
Usually Ability to cause growth or increase.
- [I]t would not be very much less absurd for someone to write about New York City after having spent only a few years or a few decades in this metropolis of inexhaustible adventure, of terrifying emotional fecundity, of uncapturable character.1946, George Johnston, Skyscrapers in the Mist, page 52:
3
Usually Number, rate, or capacity of offspring production.
- The soil spawned humanity, as it bred frogs in the Rains, and the gap of the sickness of one season was filled to overflowing by the fecundity of the next.1889, Rudyard Kipling, “The Education of Otis Yeere”, in Under the Deodars, Boston: The Greenock Press, published 1899, page 29:
4
Usually Rate of production of young by a female.
- Synonyms
- fertileness, fertility
- Derived terms
- antifecundity, infecundity, subfecundity, superfecundity
- Related terms
- fecund, fecundation