a. Also 6 steryl(e, -yll, 6–7 stirrill, sterill, 6–9 steril, 7 sterrile, sterrill, stirrile. [ad. L. sterilis, cogn. w. Skr. starī, barren cow, Gr. στεῖρα barren cow, στέριφος barren, Goth. stairō fem. adj., barren. Cf. F. stérile, It. sterile, Sp. esteril.] Barren; not producing fruit or offspring.
1. In undetermined sense.
1552. Huloet, Steryll, barayne, or fruiteles, sterilis.
1570. Levins, Manip., 129/1. Steril, sterilis.
2. Of soil, a country, occas. of a period of time: Unproductive of vegetation.
1572. Huloet (ed. Higgins), Sterill, or barrayne grounde, terra ieiuna.
1597. Shaks., 2 Hen. IV., IV. iii. 129. Like leane, stirrill, and bare Land.
1600. Fairfax, Tasso, XV. xv. The sterill coastes of barren Rinoceere They past.
1626. Bacon, Sylva, § 525. It is certaine, that in very Sterile Yeares, Corne sowne will grow to an Other Kinde.
1635. Brereton, Trav. (Chetham Soc.), 119. This country … now … is so sterile of corn as they are constrained to forsake it.
1784. Cowper, Task, I. 710. With nice incision … She ploughs a brazen field, and clothes a soil So sterile with what charms soe’er she will.
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., II. 100. No country has a smaller proportion of land absolutely steril and incapable of culture.
1806. Gazetteer Scot. (ed. 2), 337. Owing to the too copious use of marl,… some farms have been rendered perfectly sterile.
1828. Sir W. Napier, Penins. War, I. iv. (1878), I. 22. Catalonia, the most warlike, rugged, and sterile portion of Spain.
1836. Macgillivray, Trav. Humboldt, xxv. 376. Causing many places to be improved which would otherwise have remained steril.
1845. Darwin, Voy. Nat., i. (1879), 2. The novel aspect of an utterly sterile land possesses a grandeur which more vegetation might spoil.
1890. Swinburne, Stud. Prose (1894), 223. A ghastly and hardly accessible wilderness of salt marshes, with interludes of sterile meadow and unprofitable vineyard.
fig. 1720. Welton, Suffer. Son of God, II. xxiii. 639. Procure me some few Drops of those Celestial Waters, to bedew this Barren Clay, this Dry and Steril Heart.
1794. Ld. Auckland, Corr. (1862), III. 229. Though the times are sterile in some respects, you see they have produced a plentiful crop of peers.
1855. Browning, Old Pict. Florence, xxxiv. Contrast the fructuous and sterile eras.
3. Producing no offspring; incapable of producing offspring. (Chiefly said of females.)
1558. [cf. STERILENESS].
1612. Benvenuto’s Passenger, I. ii. 111. The pouder thereof is excellent for all cold infirmities of the head or ioynts, it makes the sterile plentifull.
1741. Chambers, Cycl., s.v. Sterility, Women frequently become sterile after a miscarriage.
1828. Stark, Elem. Nat. Hist., I. 147. The adult males and sterile females shed their horns in winter.
1878. Browning, Poets Croisic, 26. Anne of Austria, Twenty-three years long sterile, scarce could look For issue.
1889. J. M. Duncan, Clin. Lect. Dis. Women, xxi. (ed. 4), 168. A woman may be sterile with this man and fecund with another.
1890. Hardwicke’s Sci.-Gossip, XXVI. 122/2. Sterile workers constitute the vast majority of the commonwealth [of bees].
fig. 1659. Pearson, Creed, 271. We must not look upon the divine nature as steril, but rather acknowledge and admire the fecundity and communicability of it self, upon which the creation of the world dependeth.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., I. iv. 546. Affirming that … Christians did not … make God a Solitary and Steril Being, before the Creation neither, as the Jews did.
† b. transf. Producing nothing living. Obs.
1602. Warner, Alb. Eng., XI. lxiii. (1612), 275. The sterile Lake where Heauen-fir’d Sodom was.
† c. Causing sterility. Obs.
1601. Shaks., Jul. C., I. ii. 9. Our Elders say, The Barren touched in this holy chace, Shake off their sterrile curse.
4. Of a plant: Not bearing fruit.
1626. Bacon, Sylva, § 620. Those Things, which are knowne to comfort other Plants, did make that more Sterill.
1842. Loudon, Suburban Hort., 575. In all plantations of this variety a number of sterile plants will be found.
1845. Lindley, Sch. Bot. (1862), 60 b, Potentilla Fragaria (Sterile Strawberry).
5. Mentally or spiritually barren. Also, unproductive of results; fruitless; barren in or of (something sought or desired).
1642. H. More, Song of Soul, II. I. ii. 52. Die they again? draw they in any breath? Or be they sterill?
1665. J. Webb, Stone-Heng (1725), 93. He seems … to be very steril of Invention.
1665. Evelyn, Lett. to Sir P. Wyche, 20 June. For our language is in some places sterile and barren.
1803. W. Godwin, Life Chaucer, I. Pref. p. x. Antiquities have too generally been regarded as the province of men of cold tempers and sterile imaginations.
1848. Gallenga, Italy, I. Introd. p. xxvii. Meanwhile, the land was sterile of events.
1849. Murchison, Siluria, viii. 183. These deposits … are necessarily sterile in organic remains.
1878. Jevons, Primer Pol. Econ., 97. It has been objected to commerce that it is sterile and produces no new goods.
1879. R. K. Douglas, Confucianism, iii. 84. Confucius perceived that the … ancients had for their object the worship of the one God, but he allowed this knowledge to remain sterile.
1914. Daily News, 23 Oct., 4/2. His adventures in search of victory are uniformly sterile.
b. nonce-use as sb. A sterile person.
1870. [see IMPRACTICABLE B.].
6. Biol. a. Of an organ or structure that would normally contain reproductive elements: Barren, infertile.
Said, e.g., in Botany of a flower with only male organs, a stamen without an anther, a seed without an embryo, a frond without sori.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., IV. vi. 194. This is also a way to separate seeds, whereof such as are corrupted and sterill swim.
1753. Chambers’ Cycl., Suppl., s.v. Sicyoides, Some of the flowers on this plant are steril, or male-flowers, having no embryo.
1777. Robson, Brit. Flora, 30. Sterile, without antheræ, as in Rupturewort. Ibid., 215. Herniaria … five antheræ, five sterile chives.
1842. Brande, Dict. Sci., etc., Lepals, a term invented to denote stamens that are sterile. It is very rarely used.
1849. Balfour, Man. Bot., § 649. Flowers having stamens only, are staminiferous, staminal, or sterile.
b. Of cells, etc. Not capable of reproduction.
1856. W. Clark, Van der Hoeven’s Zool., I. 76. The terminal cells sterile, the axillary oviferous.
1882. Vines, trans. Sachs’ Bot., 306. The fructification of a Fungus consists of … a sterile portion,… and of a fertile portion.
7. Free from micro-organisms. Now often of surgical instruments, etc. = STERILIZED.
1877. Tyndall, Ess. Floating Matter Air (1881), 215. The three tubes remained perfectly sterile.
1898. R. T. Hewlett, Man. Bacteriol., 98. Blood may be obtained … by pricking the finger … with a sterile needle or lancet.
1899. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., VII. 550. The diplococcus was present in all except one case, which proved sterile.
1907. M. H. Gordon, Abel’s Labor. Handbk. Bacteriol., 160. The finger … is then rubbed with sterile wool soaked in … alcohol and ether.
8. Comb. sterile-wood, a shrub, Coprosma fœtidissima (N. O. Rubiaceæ), native of New Zealand.
1874. Treas. Bot., Suppl. 1344/1.
Hence Sterilely adv., Sterileness.
1558. W. Forrest, Grysilde Seconde (Roxb.), 54. They laide to good Grysilde her sterylenes, Whiche she cowlde not helpe: God sendeth all increase. Ibid., 84. Consernynge the sterylnes layde vnto her.
1727. Bailey, vol. II., Sterilness, Barrenness.
1886. Howells, in Century Mag., XXXIII. 191. Many men might go through life harmlessly without realizing this, perhaps, but sterilely.
