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Of or pertaining to a desert; forsaken; without life or cultivation; unproductive; waste; barren; wild; desolate; solitary; as, they landed on a desert island. He . . . went aside privately into a desert place. Luke ix. 10. Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, And waste its sweetness on the desert air. Gray. Des…

Causing destruction; tending to bring about ruin, death, or devastation; ruinous; fatal; productive of serious evil; mischievous; pernicious; -- often with of or to; as, intemperance is destructive of health; evil examples are destructive to the morals of youth. Time's destructive power. Wordsworth. Destructive distill…

Sexually reproductive. Digenous reproduction. (Biol.) Same as Digenesis.

; hence, worn out with age; exhausted of energy; incapable of efficient action; no longer productive; barren; sterile. Effete results from virile efforts. Mrs. Browning If they find the old governments effete, worn out, . . . they may seek new ones. Burke.

Possessing the quality of being effective; productive of, or powerful to produce, the effect intended; as, an efficacious law.

A real right, susceptible of assignment and of descent, charged on productive real estate, the right being coupled with the enjoyment of the property on condition of taking care of the estate and paying taxes, and sometimes a small rent. Heumann.

The quality or condition of having strong reproductive powers; generation with full fertility between different species or races, specif. between hybrids of the first generation.

Fertile; productive; as, a fat soil; a fat pasture.

A plant which produces only that kind of reproductive organs which are capable of developing into fruit after impregnation or fertilization; a pistillate plant.

fruit or vegetation in abundance; fruitful; able to produce abundantly; prolific; fecund; productive; rich; inventive; as, fertile land or fields; a fertile mind or imagination. Though he in a fertile climate dwell. Shak.

The state or quality of being fertile or fruitful; fruitfulness; productiveness; fecundity; richness; abundance of resources; fertile invention; quickness; readiness; as, the fertility of soil, or of imagination. "fertility of resource." E. Everett. And all her husbandry doth lie on heaps Corrupting in its own fertilit…

To make fertile or enrich; to supply with nourishment for plants; to make fruitful or productive; as, to fertilize land, soil, ground, and meadows. And fertilize the field that each pretends to gain. Byron.

An appendage of the reproductive apparatus of the snail.

Inventive; productive; capable. [Obs.] Shak.

The act of forming or producing fruit; the act of fructifying, or rendering productive of fruit; fecundation. The prevalent fructification of plants. Sir T. Brown.

To make fruitful; to render productive; to fertilize; as, to fructify the earth.

Fruitful; productive; profitable. [Obs.] Nothing fructuous or profitable. Chaucer. -- Fruc"tu*ous*ly, adv. -- Fruc"tu*ous*ness, n. [Obs.]

Productive of no advantage or good effect; vain; idle; useless; unprofitable; as, a fruitless attempt; a fruitless controversy. They in mutual accusation spent The fruitless hours. Milton.

A species of grass (Tripsacum dactyloides) tall, stout, and exceedingly productive; cultivated in the West Indies, Mexico, and the Southern States of North America as a forage grass; -- called also sesame grass.

That stage of growth or development in an organism, in which the reproductive elements are generated and matured in preparation for propagating the species.