infertility

infertility — noun

1. a medical condition that prevents a person, animal, or plant from having offspri

1.nounB2
Definition

a medical condition that prevents a person, animal, or plant from having offspring or reproducing in the usual way.

Example

Mei could not get pregnant for two years and saw a specialist about her infertility.

collocation: visit a specialist about infertility

Tests showed that the source of Elena's infertility was an imbalance in her thyroid hormone.

collocation: source of infertility

Common collocations
  • cause infertility
  • treat infertility
  • infertility treatment
  • infertility clinic
  • male infertility
  • female infertility
  • unexplained infertility
Synonyms
  • sterility

    stronger and more final — implies a complete, often permanent inability to have children; less common in everyday clinic talk

  • barrenness

    old-fashioned and often used for land or animals; can sound harsh or judgmental when used for people

  • subfertility

    a medical term that describes reduced fertility rather than a total inability; more precise but less widely understood

Antonyms
  • fertility

    the natural ability to produce offspring; the direct opposite

Grammar Patterns

infertility + verb

cause / treat + infertility

Usage Note

Infertility is an uncountable noun. It is used in both medical contexts (diagnosis, treatment) and personal contexts (discussing family planning). The opposite is fertility.

Common Mistakes

The doctor said his sterility could be treated with medication.
The doctor said his infertility could be treated with medication.
In everyday medical use, 'infertility' refers to difficulty conceiving (often treatable), while 'sterility' means a permanent inability to reproduce.

Word family

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/1

Infertility is the broadest and most neutral term used in both medical and everyday language. Sterility carries a stronger sense of finality — a sterile person or animal is permanently unable to reproduce, whereas infertility often leaves room for treatment or future change. Subfertility is a clinical label for a reduced chance of conceiving that falls short of complete infertility; it is more precise but less common outside medical charts. Barrenness is largely restricted to literary or historical writing about land or livestock and sounds outdated or unkind when applied to people. A doctor might say 'We are treating your infertility,' while a biology textbook might mention 'sterility in hybrid species.'

infertility ↗sterility ↗subfertilitybarrenness

Common collocations

Nouns

Adverbs

Phrases

  • deal with infertility
  • struggle with infertility

Prepositions

  • with infertility
  • from infertility

Etymology

LatinFrenchEnglish

Infertility comes from Latin in- (meaning 'not') combined with fertilis (meaning 'fruitful, productive'), which itself derives from ferre ('to bear, to carry'). The word entered English through French infertilité in the late 1500s, first appearing in medical texts about the inability to conceive or produce young.