Forms: 5 fertylyte, 6–8 fertilitie, -illity(e, (fortylite), 6– fertility. [a. Fr. fertilité, ad. L. fertilitāt-em, f. fertilis FERTILE.] The quality of being fertile; fecundity, fruitfulness, productiveness. a. lit. of the soil, a region, etc.; also of plants and animals.
1490. Caxton, Eneydos, xxv. 91. The troienne folke … multyplied within a litell tyme in grete quantite … for ye fertylyte of ye grounde.
1538. Starkey, England, I. i. 12. Maruelous culture and fortylite.
c. 1610–15. Women Saints (1886), 189. The fust fruite of our mothers fertilitie.
1818. Byron, Ch. Har. IV. xxvi.
| Thy very weeds are beautiful, thy waste | |
| More rich than other climes’ fertility. |
1859. Darwin, Orig. Spec., iv. (1873), 75. As the fertility of this clover absolutely depends on bees visiting the flowers, if humble-bees were to become rare in any country, it might be a great advantage to the plant to have a shorter or more deeply divided corolla, so that the hive-bees should be enabled to suck its flowers.
b. transf. and fig.
1615. G. Sandys, Trav., 103. Such iarres proceeded from their fertility of Gods, differing in each seuerall iurisdiction.
1666. Dryden, Ann. Mirab., Let. to Sir R. Howard. The quickness of the Imagination is seen in the invention; the fertility in the Fancy, and the accuracy in the expression.
1750. Johnson, Rambler, No. 75, Dec. 4, ¶ 4. When I examined my mind, I found some strength of judgment, and fertility of fancy; and was told that every action was grace, and that every accent was persuasion.
1802. Playfair, Illustr. Hutton. Th., 495. The architect, notwithstanding all the fertility of his invention, and all the resources of his genius, was never able to give any solidity to the structure.
1848. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., II. 637. Halifax, who in fertility of thought and brilliancy of diction, had no rival among the orators of that age.
1878. Bosw. Smith, Carthage, 136. Himilco, the commander of the garrison, was a man of energy and of fertility of resource.
c. pl. Productive powers.
1626–7. Ld. Falkland, in Abp. Ussher’s Lett. (1686), 370. Error cannot be reformed without a general admeasurement, and valluation of the different Fertilities.
1708. Swift, Sacram. Test., Wks. (1778), IV. 210. Invited by the fertilities of the soil.
1868. Rogers, Pol. Econ., xii. (1876), 164. Ground-rent, i. e. is a payment made for a particular site because it has certain conveniences, productive powers, or, to use an analogous term, fertilities, which another site, on which a building equally costly might be erected, would not possess.
