fructify

Borrowed into Middle English from Old French fructefier.

• IPA^(key): /ˈfɹʌktɪfaɪ/

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fructify (third-person singular simple present fructifies, present participle fructifying, simple past and past participle fructified)

1. (intransitive) To bear fruit; to generate useful products or ideas.
   • 1634, T[homas] H[erbert], “Mohelia, Its Description”, in A Relation of Some Yeares Trauaile, Begunne Anno 1626. into Afrique and the Greater Asia, […], London: […] William Stansby, and Jacob Bloome, →OCLC, page 24:

     Atop the [Palmito] tree is a pith, in taſte better then Cabbage; and eating it takes avvay the future benefit of grovvth or fructifying, theſe and the Date-tree thriue not, except the male and female be vnited, and haue copulation: the ſhe is only fruitfull.

     A noun use.

   • 1959 August, “Talking of Trains: Reappraisal is completed”, in Trains Illustrated, page 345:

     It is good to detect hints of a more aggressive attitude from the B.T.C. in face of constant reminders of accumulated deficits and niggling for economies before modernisation schemes have had a chance fully to fructify [...].

2. (transitive) To make productive or fruitful.
   • 1901 May 10, “Gleanings”, in The Agricultural Journal and Mining Record‎, volume 4, number 5, page 136:

     When fruit trees are to be planted it is good practice to plant alternate rows of different varieties of the same fruit, because the pollen of one variety is often wanted to fructify or fertilise the flowers of another.

   • 1920, Edward Carpenter, Pagan and Christian Creeds, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., published 1921, page 21:

     He slew the Bull (symbol of the gross Earth which the sunlight fructifies).

• “fructify”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.