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say it: STER-uhl
sterile is an adjective meaning "incapable of reproducing". It carries 3 recorded senses.
incapable of reproducing
“an infertile couple”
free of or using methods to keep free of pathological microorganisms
“a sterile operating area”
“aseptic surgical instruments”
“aseptic surgical techniques”
deficient in originality or creativity; lacking powers of invention
“a sterile ideology lacking in originality”
“unimaginative development of a musical theme”
“uninspired writing”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for sterile come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.