9 February 2014

fecund

[fee-kuhnd, -kuhnd, fek-uhnd, -uhnd]

adjective

1. producing or capable of producing offspring, fruit, vegetation, etc., in abundance; prolific; fruitful: fecund parents; fecund farmland.
2. very productive or creative intellectually: the fecund years of the Italian Renaissance.

Origin:
1375–1425; late Middle English < Latin fēcundus, equivalent to fē- (see fetus) + -cundus adj. suffix; replacing late Middle English fecounde < Anglo-French

Related forms
non·fe·cund, adjective
un·fe·cund, adjective

fecundity

[fi-kuhn-di-tee]

noun

1. the quality of being fecund; capacity, especially in female animals, of producing young in great numbers.
2. fruitfulness or fertility, as of the earth.
3. the capacity of abundant production: fecundity of imagination.

Origin:
1375–1425; late Middle English < Latin fēcunditās fruitfulness, fertility. See fecund, -ity

Related forms
non·fe·cun·di·ty, noun
su·per·fe·cun·di·ty, noun

Anagram (fecundity)

city unfed

Today’s aphorism

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.

– Alice Walker

On this day

9 February 1944 – birth of Alice Walker, American author, poet and activist. She grew up in the America’s deep south, under the notorious ‘Jim Crow’ laws which segrated whites and blacks. She has since written numerous books, including the Pulitzer Award winning ‘The Color Purple’ which addressed much of the issues facing society in Georgia in the 1930s.

9 February 1981 – death of Bill Haley, who arguably had the world’s first ever rock’n’roll song, ‘Rock Around the Clock’. He was born 6 July 1925.

9 February 1997 – death of Brian Connolly, Scottish rocker, lead singer of Sweet (Fox on the Run, Ballroom Blitz, Teenage Rampage, Action). Born 5 October 1945.