Sounds dirty but isn't
Today's word of the day is one I am going to seriously have trouble working into everyday language. It just sounds dirty. Or maybe that's just my mind. You be the judge:
fecund \FEE-kuhnd; FEK-uhnd\, adjective:
1. Capable of producing offspring or vegetation; fruitful; prolific.
2. Intellectually productive or inventive.
For 21 years after the birth of the Prince of Wales, the fecund royal couple produced children at the rate of two every three years -- eight boys and six girls in all.
-- Saul David, Prince of Pleasure
In her first novel she portrays a lush, fecund landscape palpable in its sultriness and excess.
-- Barbara Crossette, "Seeking Nirvana", New York Times, April 29, 2001
Miss Ozick can convert any skeptic to the cult of her shrewd and fecund imagination.
-- Edmund White, "Images of a Mind Thinking", New York Times, September 11, 1983
Fecund comes from Latin fecundus, "fruitful, prolific." The noun form is fecundity.
2 comments:
Fecund is an odd sounding word.
I know. Sorry to be graphic, but it makes me think "poo".
Challenge: use it in a sentence without smirking. Report back.
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