Fertile Crescent

Fer·tile Crescent

F0087900 (fŭr′tl) A region of the Middle East extending from the Levant across the northern part of the Syrian Desert to the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Climatic and ecological conditions in the Fertile Crescent favored the Neolithic development of agriculture, eventually giving rise to such civilizations as Sumer, Egypt, Babylonia, and Phoenicia.

Fertile Crescent

n (Placename) an area of fertile land in the Middle East, extending around the Rivers Tigris and Euphrates in a semicircle from Israel to the Persian Gulf, where the Sumerian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Phoenician, and Hebrew civilizations flourished

Fer′tile Cres′cent

n. a crescent-shaped agricultural region of the ancient Near East beginning at the Mediterranean Sea and extending between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers to the Persian Gulf.

Fertile crescent

An area bordering the Mediterranean and including the Nile valley where western civilization and its derivations began. It was farmed with settled communities from c. 8000 BC.

Thesaurus

Noun

1.

Fertile Crescent - a geographical area of fertile land in the Middle East stretching in a broad semicircle from the Nile to the Tigris and EuphratesMiddle East, Mideast, Near East - the area around the eastern Mediterranean; from Turkey to northern Africa and eastward to Iran; the site of such ancient civilizations as Phoenicia and Babylon and Egypt and the birthplace of Judaism and Christianity and Islam; had continuous economic and political turmoil in the 20th century; "the Middle East is the cradle of Western civilization"

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