fertilization

Etymology

It is formed from English fertilize + -ation,^[2][3][4][5] and Etymonline allows that it may instead be borrowed from French fertilisation.^[3] The OED compares the French noun, found in 1687 in the passage that the first English quotation (1713) translates.^[2] The verb is formed from fertile and -ize,^[3][2] and the adjective is from Latin fertilis (“bearing in abundance, fruitful”), from ferō (“to bear”), from Proto-Indo-European *bher- (“to carry”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The creating or promoting of life, the making of living things more numerous or fruitful: 1713, in a translation of Poiret's Divine Œconomy, a sense now obsolete.^[2] The OED's revision of 2025 brought this date forward from 1857, the first date in the 1989 edition,^[2][6] which is also Etymonline's date.^[3] Merriam-Webster dates the word to about 1787,^[7][8] and the Shorter Oxford to the mid-19th century.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The general early sense, rare and last recorded in 1922, gave way to more specific ones.^[2] From 1733 the word was used of enriching soil so that it grows better crops,^[2] the sense that also gave fertilizer.^[9][8] From 1782 it named the action of pollen in making a seed fertile, and later, more widely, the union of male and female gametes;^[2] Etymonline dates the biological sense of the verb fertilize to 1859.^[3] A figurative use, the making of something productive, especially the stimulation of ideas or cultures by outside contact, is recorded from 1831,^[2] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged has a sense of intellectual or economic enrichment.^[8]

Timeline

• 1713 – the creating or promoting of life (obsolete, last recorded 1922).^[2]
• 1733 – the enriching of soil for growing crops.^[2]
• 1782 – the action of pollen in making a seed fertile; later, the union of gametes.^[2]
• 1831 – figurative, the making of something productive or fruitful.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The union of a male and a female gamete to form a zygote.^[9][10][2]
2. The process of starting reproduction by insemination or pollination.^[9][8]
3. The application of fertilizer to soil or crops: Heavy fertilization of the fields polluted the river.^[9][8][2]
4. The enrichment or stimulation of ideas, a culture or an economy by outside influence.^[8][2]

Word family

• fertilizational
• cross-fertilization
• overfertilization
• prefertilization
• refertilization
• self-fertilization
• in vitro fertilization

Related words

• fertile
• fertilize
• fertilizer
• fertility

Usage notes

The spelling fertilisation is also used in British English.^[8][10]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
9. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
10. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins