Fertility is the ability to produce young or good crops. Soil fertility, fertility treatment, the fertility rate.
In demography, the fertility rate is the average number of children per woman, and about 2.1 is the level at which a population replaces itself. In medicine, fertility treatment covers a range of interventions of which IVF is the best known. In farming, soil fertility is about nutrients and structure together. Note fertile, fertilise, fertiliser; and that fertility and fertile are used of land, people and imaginations alike.
1nounfertilityThe ability to produce young or good crops.
“Farmers add manure to improve the fertility of the soil.”
2nounaverageThe average number of children born per woman.
“Falling fertility means the country's population is getting older.”
fertility is a capacity to produce.
Latin fertilitas comes from ferre, to bear or carry — the same verb as in transfer and offer. Fertility is bearing-ness, and the crop and the child are the same idea to the word.
Latin
fertilitās
Middle French
fertilité
English, today
fertility
From Middle French fertilité, from Latin fertilitās, equivalent to fertile + -ity.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA