as in barren
producing inferior or only a small amount of vegetation
struggling to make a living with the region's unfertile fields
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Recent Examples of unfertile
Movies based on videogames, once unfertile IP for Hollywood at the box office, have blossomed in recent years.
—
Anthony D'alessandro, Deadline, 9 June 2025
Anthony D'alessandro, Deadline, 9 June 2025
Recent Examples of Synonyms for unfertile
Adjective
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In a barren free-agent class, though, that’s much easier said than done.—
Shayna Goldman,
New York Times,
2 June 2026
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Called me barren and used up and all that.—
Jamil Jan Kochai,
New Yorker,
1 June 2026
Adjective
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Since the Bankhead and Livermore Cinema opened, a number of popular restaurants – including Zachary’s Pizza, Sauced BBQ and Spirits and Locanda Wine Bar have transformed a once-desolate block into a buzzing culinary destination.—
Martha Ross,
Mercury News,
4 June 2026
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Just under 300,000 years from the moment Homo sapiens appeared in Africa, the species had encircled Earth, mastering desolate deserts and frozen wastelands and all the temperate climes in between.—
Cody Cottier,
Scientific American,
4 June 2026
Adjective
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Rural Cuba was profoundly impoverished and underdeveloped before and during the Batista era, and land ownership was scant among the working poor.—
Max Saltman,
CNN Money,
4 June 2026
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So much for bringing the experience of art to culturally impoverished Butte.—
Jonathan Franzen,
New Yorker,
1 June 2026
Adjective
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The second didn’t go nearly as well for Bussi as Karlsson and Howden scored on two of the Golden Knights’ six shots in the period to tie the score at 3-3 heading into the third, the tying goal coming off a Seth Jarvis turnover and a couple of poor defensive plays by Sean Walker and K’Andre Miller.—
Michael Russo,
New York Times,
10 June 2026
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Heat radiates from the pages of this extraordinary novel about a poor family in rural Mississippi in the days leading up to Hurricane Katrina.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
9 June 2026
Cite this Entry
“Unfertile.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/unfertile. Accessed 11 Jun. 2026.
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