Definition

Adjective: 1. Producing a large quantity of something, especially offspring, fruit, or creative work: Describes something or someone that generates an abundant amount. 2. Intellectually productive; fertile in generating ideas or works: Describes a mind or person that creates many new things, such as writings, inventions, or artistic pieces.

Usage and Examples

• Describing high output in nature or reproduction:
  • Rabbits are famously prolific animals.
  • The prolific apple tree in our garden yields hundreds of fruits each season.
• Describing high creative or intellectual output:
  • She is a prolific author, having published over thirty novels.
  • The artist had a prolific period in the 1960s, creating most of his famous works.

Advanced Usage

• "Prolific of" (formal/literary): Tending to produce or generate a particular result.
  • The period was prolific of social change and innovation.

Variants and Related Words

• Prolifically (adverb): In a prolific manner.
  • He wrote prolifically throughout his career.
• Prolificacy / Prolificness (nouns): The state or quality of being prolific.

Synonyms

• Fecund: Capable of producing many offspring or much creative work; intellectually fertile.
• Fertile: Producing or capable of producing abundant vegetation or crops; also used for a mind rich in ideas.
• Productive: Yielding or producing large amounts; achieving a significant amount or result.

Antonyms

• Barren: Incapable of producing offspring or fruit; unproductive.
• Unproductive: Not producing or able to produce large amounts of goods, crops, or other commodities.

Adjective

1. bearing in abundance especially offspring
   • flying foxes are extremely prolific
   • a prolific pear tree
2. intellectually productive
   • a prolific writer
   • a fecund imagination