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fertilize

[fur-tl-ahyz] / ˈfɜr tlˌaɪz /


Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

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And “if they fertilize the lawn around the pool, all that water that’s running in there is adding nitrogen and phosphorus,” she says.

From Slate Jun. 27, 2026

He said he already had paid $50,000 more than last year to fertilize his corn fields in the past 30 days.

From The Wall Street Journal Apr. 3, 2026

In addition to rising fuel costs, farmers in the Central Valley say they are stockpiling fertilizer and looking for otherways to fertilize their crops.

From Los Angeles Times Mar. 29, 2026

Researchers at Michigan State University have identified a molecular "switch" that boosts sperm energy just before they attempt to fertilize an egg.

From Science Daily Feb. 14, 2026

I had planned to fertilize the corn and the soybeans, which were now up.

From "Z for Zachariah" by Robert C. O’Brien

Dusky farmerfish in East Asia grow “crops” of red algae by assiduously “weeding out less palatable foods” and have effectively domesticated a type of shrimp whose waste fertilizes the algae and boosts yields.

From The Wall Street Journal Jun. 19, 2026

Phosphorus from wastewater and agricultural runoff flows downstream to the Gulf of Mexico, where it unintentionally fertilizes plankton.

From Science Daily Feb. 7, 2024

The business-nature of professional sports continually fertilizes that feeling.

From Seattle Times Oct. 12, 2023

In mammals, offspring are produced when males’ sperm fertilizes females’ eggs.

From Scientific American Aug. 1, 2023

The animal also spreads grass seed, plants it with his hooves, and then fertilizes it with his manure.

From "The Omnivore's Dilemma" by Michael Pollan

We begin our lives as single fertilized eggs, which repeatedly divide and sequentially specialize into the 30 trillion or so cells that make up the adult body.

From The Wall Street Journal Apr. 20, 2026

But this year, the state, tribal and federal scientists involved have no plans to transport fertilized eggs above the dams, Olstad said.

From Los Angeles Times Apr. 4, 2026

After four hours in simulated zero gravity, the number of successfully fertilized mouse eggs dropped by 30 per cent compared to normal Earth conditions.

From Science Daily Mar. 29, 2026

They could then be fertilized before journey’s end, and the babies raised “under the tutelage of cybernetic nurses who would teach them their inheritance and their destiny when they were capable of understanding it.”

From Slate Dec. 9, 2025

She raked away our dead leaves, spaded new soil around us, and watered and fertilized.

From "The Wednesday Wars" by Gary D. Schmidt

The additional effort he puts in—seeding, watering, fertilizing, aerating—is a reflection of his professional work ethic.

From The Wall Street Journal Jul. 9, 2026

In clinical terms, IVF involves removing eggs from a woman, fertilizing them in a lab with sperm and implanting embryos in the uterus.

From The Wall Street Journal Nov. 14, 2025

California currently does not require insurance companies to cover fertility treatment, including IVF, which involves collecting eggs from ovaries, fertilizing them with sperm in a lab and then implanting them in a uterus.

From Los Angeles Times Aug. 29, 2024

As the Washington Post noted, "Emergency contraceptive pills such as Plan B and Ella work by inhibiting or delaying ovulation, thereby preventing sperm from fertilizing the egg."

From Salon Jun. 6, 2024

“We’ve got some new books on agriculture—farming, gardening, fertilizing, things like that—and we’re studying them. It’s part of the Plan.”

From "Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH" by Robert C. O'Brien




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