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eep, perpendicular, or overhanging place; an abrupt declivity; a cliff. Where wealth like fruit on precipices grew. Dryden.

In a pregnant manner; fruitfully; significantly.

Mature or ripe before the proper time; as, the premature fruits of a hotbed.

First fruits. [Obs.] Dryden.

, or kept from injury, destruction, or decay; security; safety; as, preservation of life, fruit, game, etc.; a picture in good preservation. Give us particulars of thy preservation. Shak.

A room, or apparatus, in which perishable things, as fruit, vegetables, etc., can be preserved without decay.

substance, as sugar, salt, etc.; to season and prepare for remaining in a good state, as fruits, meat, etc.; as, to preserve peaches or grapes. You can not preserve it from tainting. Shak.

One who makes preserves of fruit. Game preserver. See under Game.

ed upon each other. The sessile flowers have many petals and numerous stamens. The edible fruit is a large pear-shaped berry containing many flattish seeds. The common species of the Northern Atlantic States is Opuntia vulgaris. In the South and West are many others, and in tropical America more than a hundred more. O.…

The first fruit; the first year's whole profit of an ecclesiastical preferment. The primitias of your parsonage. Spenser.

Generating; producing; productive; fruitful; assisting in procreation. [R.] "His pendent bed and procreant cradle." Shak.

generate; to propagate; to yield; to furnish; as, the earth produces grass; trees produce fruit; the clouds produce rain. This soil produces all sorts of palm trees. Sandys. [They] produce prodigious births of body or mind. Milton. The greatest jurist his country had produced. Macaulay.

To forbid by authority; to interdict; as, God prohibited Adam from eating of the fruit of a certain tree; we prohibit a person from doing a thing, and also the doing of the thing; as, the law prohibits men from stealing, or it prohibits stealing.

Having the quality of generating; producing young or fruit; generative; fruitful; productive; -- applied to plants producing fruit, animals producing young, etc.; -- usually with the implied idea of frequent or numerous production; as, a prolific tree, female, and the like.

Producing young or fruit abundantly; fruitful; prolific. -- Pro*lif"ic*al*ly, adv.

The quality or state of being prolific; fruitfulness; prolificacy.

e the larva has a hump or prominence on its back. Several of the species are injurious to fruit trees.

nimals and plants; as, to propagate a breed of horses or sheep; to propagate a species of fruit tree.

To supply; to afford; to contribute. Bring me berries, or such cooling fruit As the kind, hospitable woods provide. Milton.

(b) The West Indian tree, Prunus occidentalis. -- South African prune (Bot.), the edible fruit of a sapindaceous tree (Pappea Capensis).