Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Not bearing fruit or offspring; barren.
- adjective Not productive of a good or useful result.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Not fruitful, in any sense.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Not producing fruit or offspring; unproductive; infertile; barren; sterile
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Of or pertaining to not
bearing fruit (usuallyfiguratively ).
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective not fruitful; not conducive to abundant production
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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Praise be to God, my life cannot be called unfruitful; but, compared with the wise Gotthard Lenz and his stout-hearted son Rudlieb, I look upon myself as an esquire who has perhaps been some few times to tourneys, and, besides that, has never hunted out his own forests.
Sintram and His Companions Friedrich Heinrich Karl Freiherr de La Motte-Fouqu�� 1810
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This sin of all others may be termed the unfruitful work of darkness.
The Art of Divine Contentment: An Exposition of Philippians 4:11 1653
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The Blue Laws of Connecticut in 1650 denounced gambling because it fostered too much "unfruitful" time.
Internet Gambling: No Mere Roll Of The Dice Reuven Brenner 2010
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Less forgivable is that Behe dismissed such research as 'unfruitful'.
The God Delusion Dawkins, Richard, 1941- 2006
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-- The most healthy classes have the most numerous families; but that, as luxury enervates society, it diminishes the population, by enfeebling parents, nature preferring none rather than those too weakly to live and be happy, and thereby rendering that union unfruitful which is too feeble to produce offspring sufficiently strong to enjoy life.
Searchlights on Health The Science of Eugenics B. G. Jefferis
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-- The most healthy classes have the most numerous families; but that, as luxury enervates society, it diminishes the population, by enfeebling parents, nature preferring none rather than those too weakly to live and be happy, and thereby rendering that union unfruitful which is too feeble to produce offspring sufficiently strong to enjoy life.
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[Verse 8] Such lives are "not idle," they are active; they are not "unfruitful," they are efficient.
The Epistles of St. Peter 1817-1893 1910
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The only times I've ever tried have been unfruitful.
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After many unfruitful hunts waiting for a good buck, i decided it was time to get one in the freezer.
Field & Stream 2009
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If you were to get down on all fours and try to shake off water after a shower, your efforts would be most unfruitful.
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