Summary: Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for October 13, 2012 is: fecund \FEK-und\ adjective 1 : fruitful in offspring or vegetation : prolific 2 : intellectually productive or inventive to a marked degree Examples: As an artist she gets most of her inspiration from nature; her daily walks in the woods are a fecund source of ideas. "Sea slugs that mate more than the absolute minimum necessary to retain female fertility are more fecund than slugs that mate less often, according to the study detailed Wednesday in the open-access journal PLoS ONE." From an article by Stephanie Pappas on NBCNews.com, August 22, 2012 Did you know? "Fecund" and its synonyms "fruitful" and "fertile" all mean producing or capable of producing offspring or fruitliterally or figuratively. "Fecund" applies to things that yield offspring, fruit, or results in abundance or with rapidity ("a fecund herd"; "a fecund imagination"). "Fruitful" emphasizes abundance, too, and often adds the implication that the results attained are desirable or useful ("fruitful plains"; "a fruitful discussion"). "Fertile" implies the power to reproduce ("a fertile woman") or the power to assist in reproduction, growth, or development ("fertile soil"; "a fertile climate for artists").
