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

n normal development, so as either to remain rudimentary or shrink away wholly; to become sterile.

Rendered abortive or sterile; undeveloped; checked in normal development at a very early stage; as, spines are aborted branches. The eyes of the cirripeds are more or less aborted in their mature state. Owen.

Imperfectly formed or developed; rudimentary; sterile; as, an abortive organ, stamen, ovule, etc.

A sterile plain, containing an excess of alkali, at the bottom of an undrained basin in an arid region; a playa.

Incapable of producing offspring; producing no young; sterile; -- She was barren of children. Bp. Hall.

t generating or breeding freely; infertility; a form homogenesis in which the hybrids are sterile among themselves, but are fertile with members of either parent race.

th 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.

Wanting the power of procreation; unable to copulate; also, sometimes, sterile; barren.

To exhaust the strength, richness, or fertility of; to make sterile; as, to impoverish land.

Not bearing anthers; -- said of sterile stamens.

Not fertile; not productive; barren; sterile; as, an infertile soil.

A sterile transformed stamen.

arfs, handkerchiefs, embroidery, etc., woven from the fiber obtained from the leaf of the sterile pineapple plant. It is delicate, soft, and transparent, with a tinge of pale yellow.

Destitute of fertility; exhausted; barren; sterile; -- said of land; as, poor soil.

isting of perennial herbs with showy pedunculate heads, having a hemispherical involucre, sterile ray flowers, and a conical chaffy receptacle. There are about thirty species, exclusively North American. Rudbeckia hirta, the black-eyed Susan, is a common weed in meadows.

The quality or condition of being sterile.

The act or process of sterilizing, or rendering sterile; also, the state of being sterile.

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

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.