STERILIZE

v.

3 definitions — Webster’s Dictionary (1828)


1.
v.

To make sterile or unproductive; to impoverish, as land; to exhaust of fertility. [R.] "Sterilizing the earth." Woodward.

2.
v.

To deprive of the power of reproducing; to render incapable of germination or fecundation; to make sterile.

3.
v.

To destroy all spores or germs in (an organic fluid or mixture), as by heat, so as to prevent the development of bacterial or other organisms.