Where does “fruitful” come from?
Fruitful comes from Middle English fruitefull, meaning productive or fertile, referring to something capable of bearing fruit or yielding results.
fruitful (English): Favourable to the growth of fruit or useful...
Definitions
- Favourable to the growth of fruit or useful...
Ancestry of “fruitful”, step by step
| Step | Language | Word | Meaning |
|---|
| 1 | Middle English | fruitefull | — |
| 2 | Middle English | -ful | Appended to nouns to form adjectives denoting... |
| 3 | Old English | -ful | full of; -ful |
| 4 | Proto-Germanic | -fullaz | -ful |
| 5 | Proto-Germanic | fullaz | full; the whole, the entire |
| 6 | Proto-Indo-European | pl̥h₁nós | full |
| 7 | Proto-Indo-European | pleh₁- | to fill |
Words derived from “fruitful”