Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Producing offspring or fruit in great abundance; fertile.
- adjective Producing or characterized by abundant works or results: synonym: fertile.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Producing young or fruit, especially in abundance; fruitful; fertile; productive in general: as, a prolific female; a prolific tree; prolific seed.
- Serving to give rise or origin; having the quality of generating: as, a controversy prolific of evil consequences; a prolific brain.
- Same as
proliferous .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Having the quality of generating; producing young or fruit; generative; fruitful; productive; -- applied to plants producing fruit, animals producing young, etc.; -- usually with the implied idea of frequent or numerous production.
- adjective Serving to produce; fruitful of results; active
- adjective (Bot.) Proliferous.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective
Fertile ,producing offspring orfruit inabundance — applied to plants producing fruit, animals producing young, etc. - adjective Similarly producing
results orworks inabundance
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective intellectually productive
- adjective bearing in abundance especially offspring
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The word "prolific" may well have been invented to describe Robert Pollard, who I must guess is sick to death of people telling him about his POTENTIAL if he would just FOCUS HIMSELF and CHANNEL HIS ENERGY.
Boing Boing Mark Frauenfelder 2011
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The CBS News program "48 Hours" in 1993 devoted an hourlong program, "See You in Court; Civil War, Anthony Martin Clogs Legal System with Frivolous Lawsuits," to what it called his prolific filings.
Andrea Harner 2008
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Neil Young -- One more transplanted Canadian -- Dylan's rival in prolific songwriting, but more about him in Year of the Horse, yet to come.
Archive 2005-05-01 Michael Evans 2005
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Neil Young -- One more transplanted Canadian -- Dylan's rival in prolific songwriting, but more about him in Year of the Horse, yet to come.
View from the Northern Border Michael Evans 2005
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He studied mathematics and physics under Santucci and became known as a prolific writer on mathematical and historical subjects.
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 2: Assizes-Browne 1840-1916 1913
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He is known as a prolific fundraiser and has devoted considerable energy to filling his campaign coffers.
The Seattle Times 2011
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He is known as a prolific fundraiser and has devoted considerable energy to filling his campaign coffers.
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He is known as a prolific fundraiser and has devoted considerable energy to filling his campaign coffers.
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Now the word prolific just doesn't quite seem to cut it, but prolific he is.
The Line Of Best Fit 2009
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Now the word prolific just doesn't quite seem to cut it, but prolific he is.
The Line Of Best Fit 2009
cosmican commented on the word prolific
A prolific writer
November 20, 2007
gangerh commented on the word prolific
Opposite of 'conlific'?
January 30, 2008
bookhling commented on the word prolific
Am I being.... Prolific right now?
August 15, 2008
sionnach commented on the word prolific
Question:
What is the noun that denotes the quality of being 'prolific'?
January 8, 2009
chained_bear commented on the word prolific
OED says prolificacy. I have a hazy memory of seeing "prolificness" in print, but it may have been a dream.
January 8, 2009
reesetee commented on the word prolific
C_b beat me to it: prolificacy. But it sure is a mouthful. Prolificness is also listed by OED (though tagged as obsolete) and prolificalness is tagged as rare, but prolificity is also listed.
I'm enjoying there being a proliferation of "prolific" nouns. :-)
January 8, 2009