fructify

verb

Etymology: Borrowed into Middle English from Old French fructefier.

1. 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.”

   “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.”

2. 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.”

   “He slew the Bull (symbol of the gross Earth which the sunlight fructifies).”