单词 | sterile |
释义 | ster·ile 1. a. < a hybrid that is completely sterile > b. < a sterile tree > < sterile fungous hyphae > c. < sterile spores > d. of a flower e. < sterile fern fronds > 2. a. < a sterile arid region > < an unusually sterile year > b. < a sterile author > < sterile prose > c. < a sterile cyst > < dead sterile soil > — compare sterilize 3. < capital kept sterile through lack of initiative > < excessive and sterile reserves > Synonyms: < a sterile woman > < a sterile ram > < a sterile author > < the failure of the three characters to emerge as individuals makes their personal drama seem sterile — American Scholar > < for him man is always the wanderer in the oppressive and sterile world of materialism — Alfred Kazin > < lies at an elevation of from 500 to 1,500 feet, and consists mainly of saline wastes and other sterile tracts — Encyc. Americana > barren applies especially to a female who has borne no offspring or is incapable of bearing offspring, stressing, literally and figuratively, the lack of issue < a barren woman > < a barren soil > < nine barren years of marriage — Alice Lake > < I am very barren of American news — H.J.Laski > impotent in this sense applies especially to a male lacking the ability to engage in sexual intercourse and so to produce his kind, carrying more generally the implication of inability to act or suggesting some lack of manliness or natural vigor < an impotant man > < nothing is quite so impotent in politics as a defeated candidate — W.A.White > < drove the choleric old man into a fit of impotent fury — Charles Reade > unfruitful, interchangeable with barren though less forceful and absolute, has a more widespread figurative than literal use < an unfruitful orchard > < an unfruitful enterprise > < unfruitful negotiations between belligerent states > infertile, a factual and neutral word, carries the sense of sterile, especially in literal application < an infertile marriage > < an infertile valley > < an infertile line of research > |
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