fruitful

• fruitfull (archaic)

From Middle English fruitefull, equivalent to fruit +‎ -ful. Compare Dutch vruchtvol, German fruchtvoll, Swedish fruktfull.

• IPA^(key): /ˈfɹuːtfəl/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: fruit‧ful

fruitful (comparative more fruitful, superlative most fruitful)

1. Favourable to the growth of fruit or useful vegetation; not barren.

   Synonyms: fructive, fructuous

   Antonyms: barren, infertile, unfruitful

   Hypernym: fertile

   • 1611, The Holy Bible,  (King James Version), London: Robert Barker, , →OCLC, Genesis 1:22:

     And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.

2. Being productive in any sense; yielding benefits.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:productive

   Antonym: unfruitful

   The extra work in the office turned out to be fruitful after all—I got promoted

• fruitious (obsolete)

• fruitfully
• fruitfulness

• “fruitful”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.
• “fruitful”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.