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Cold and unproductive; as, sour land; a sour marsh. Sour dock (Bot.), sorrel. -- Sour gourd (Bot.), the gourdlike fruit Adansonia Gregorii, and A. digitata; also, either of the trees bearing this fruit. See Adansonia. -- Sour grapes. See under Grape. -- Sour gum (Bot.) See Turelo. -- Sour plum (Bot.), the edible ac…

A small sac connected with the female reproductive organs of insects and many other invertebrates, serving to receive and retain the spermatozoa.

formed in certain organisms, and by germination giving rise to a new organism; as, the reproductive spores of bacteria, etc.

A hydrozoan reproductive zooid or gonophore which does not become medusoid in form or structure. See Illust. under Athecata.

Interrupted by unproductive spots; -- said of a flied of turnips or grain. [Prov. Eng.] Halliwell.

Producing little or no crop; barren; unfruitful; unproductive; not fertile; as, sterile land; a sterile desert; a sterile year.

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

One of innumerable minute, motile, reproductive bodies, produced asexually by certain algæ and fungi; a zoöspore.

Prolific; productive. Teeming buds and cheerful appear. Dryden.

The nutritive zooids of a hydroid, collectively, as distinguished from the gonosome, or reproductive zooids.

Not producing fruit or offspring; unproductive; infertile; barren; sterile; as, an unfruitful tree or animal; unfruitful soil; an unfruitful life or effort. -- Un*fruit"ful*ly, adv. -- Un*fruit"ful*ness, n.

ng empty, visionary, unreal, or unsubstantial; fruitless desire or effort; trifling labor productive of no good; empty pleasure; vain pursuit; idle show; unsubstantial enjoyment. Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher. Eccl. i. 2. Vanity possesseth many who are desirous to know the certainty of things to come. Sir P. S…

Lying unused; unproductive; worthless; valueless; refuse; rejected; as, waste land; waste paper. But his waste words returned to him in vain. Spenser. Not a waste or needless sound, Till we come to holier ground. Milton. Ill day which made this beauty waste. Emerson.