fructify

Verb

fructify (third-person singular simple present fructifies, present participle fructifying, simple past and past participle fructified)

1. (intransitive) To bear fruit; to generate useful products or ideas.
   • Atop the [Palmito] tree is a pith, in taſte better then Cabbage; and eating it takes avvay the future benefit of grovvth or fructifying, theſe and the Date-tree thriue not, except the male and female be vnited, and haue copulation: the ſhe is only fruitfull.1634, T[homas] H[erbert], “Mohelia, Its Description”, in A Relation of Some Yeares Trauaile, Begunne Anno 1626. into Afrique and the Greater Asia, […], London: […] William Stansby, and Jacob Bloome...
   • Then one evening early in November Beedel rang Mr Carrados up. The blind man happened to take the call himself, and at the first words he knew that the dull, patient shadowing of weeks was about to fructify.1927, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], Max Carrados Mysteries
2. (transitive) To make productive or fruitful.
   • When fruit trees are to be planted it is good practice to plant alternate rows of different varieties of the same fruit, because the pollen of one variety is often wanted to fructify or fertilise the flowers of another.1901 May 10, “Gleanings”, in The Agricultural Journal and Mining Record, volume 4, number 5, page 136
   • He slew the Bull (symbol of the gross Earth which the sunlight fructifies).1920, Edward Carpenter, Pagan and Christian Creeds, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., published 1921, page 21