fecund

• fœcund (hypercorrect, obsolete)

From Middle French fécond, from Latin fēcundus (“fertile”), which is related to fētus and fēmina (“woman”).

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈfɛk.ənd/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈfi.kənd/
• Rhymes: -ɛkənd, -iːkənd

fecund (comparative more fecund, superlative most fecund)

1. (formal) Highly fertile; able to produce offspring.

   Synonyms: battle, (archaic) childing

   • 2001, Massimo Livi Bacci, A Concise History of World Population, page 9:

     The number of children per woman depends, as has been said, on biological and social factors which determine: (1) the frequency of births during a woman's fecund period, and (2) the portion of the fecund period--between puberty and menopause--effectively utilized for reproduction.

   • 2014 December 23, Olivia Judson, “The hemiparasite season [print version: Under the hemiparasite, International New York Times, 24–25 December 2014, p. 7]”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:

     The druids […] believed that mistletoe could make barren animals fecund, and that it was an antidote to all poisons.

2. (figuratively) Leading to new ideas or innovation.

   Synonyms: fertile, productive, prolific

   • 1906, Charles Sanders Peirce, “The Basis of Pragmatism in the Normative Sciences”, in The Essential Peirce: Selected Philosophical Writings, volume II, page 373:

     This idea of Aristotle's has proved marvellously fecund; and in truth it is the only idea covering quite the whole area of cenoscopy that has shown any marked uberosity.

• fecundity

Borrowed from Latin fēcundus.

• IPA^(key): (Central) [fəˈkun]
• IPA^(key): (Balearic) [fəˈkunt]
• IPA^(key): (Valencia) [feˈkunt]

fecund (feminine fecunda, masculine plural fecunds, feminine plural fecundes)

1. fruitful
2. fertile

   Synonym: fèrtil

• fecundament

• fecundar
• fecunditat

• “fecund”, in Diccionari de la llengua catalana [Dictionary of the Catalan Language] (in Catalan), second edition, Institute of Catalan Studies [Catalan: Institut d'Estudis Catalans], April 2007
• “fecund”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2025
• “fecund” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “fecund” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

Borrowed from French fécond, from Latin fecundus.

fecund m or n (feminine singular fecundă, masculine plural fecunzi, feminine and neuter plural fecunde)

1. fruitful

• fecunda
• fecunditate