Friday, April 22, 2011

fecundity

fecundity [fɪˈkʌndɪti] n.

1.) Of female animals: The faculty of reproduction, the capacity for bringing forth young; productiveness.
2.) (Bot.) The faculty or power of germinating.
3.) Of the earth: The quality of producing abundantly; fertility.
4.) Productiveness in general, the faculty or power of being fruitful, fertility: of both material and immaterial things.
5.) The capacity for making fruitful or productive, fertilizing power (Oxford English Dictionary 2nd Ed.).

Etymology: adopted from French fecond, an adaptation of the Latin fēcundus, meaning fruitful. In the 16th century the spelling was refashioned after the Latin.

"He held here enclosed, soft, unutterably soft, and with the unrelaxing softness of fate, the relentless softness of fecundity. She quivered, and quivered, like a tense thing that is struck. But he held her all the time, soft, unending, like darkness closed upon her, omnipresent as the night. He kissed her, and she quivered as if she were being destroyed, shattered. The lighted vessel vibrated, and broke in her soul, the light fell, struggled, and went dark. She was all dark, will-less, having only the receptive will" (The Rainbow, D. H. Lawrence, 1915).

11 comments:

Solsby Kid said...

Great info man!

Sick by Trend said...

hey!! the actress was Lydia Bosch :D

xx

www.sickbytrend.com

123 said...

huh, never heard of this word before :)

Team Panda said...

i had trouble pronouncing it at first (i ended up using dictionary.com to check out the voice clip lol)

Lemmiwinks said...

nice!

-E- said...

@Team Panda hmmm...yeah the IPA is not very intuitive. maybe i'll start providing audio on here.

Blair said...

These are some great words. I'm up for that audio too!

Nina said...

mm, new words.

Grafted said...

Audio would be awesome

Speedy Ed said...

good to know

JayPower said...

Always an interesting word bro, your blog never fails ;D

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