MEANING
1. The exchange of ideas between different groups or fields that helps generate new insights.
2. Fertilization involving reproductive cells from different individuals of the same species.
Use it for
describing disciplines learning from each other; showing ideas moving between traditions; explaining how collaboration produces new approaches; distinguishing productive exchange from simple coexistenceDescribes productive exchange between traditions or fields, not merely their coexistence. Writing functions: Theory / Conceptual Language.
Words that belong together
- cross-fertilization of ideas
- intellectual cross-fertilization
- cross-fertilization between disciplines
On the page
Cross-fertilization between economic history and anthropology changed how the project understood household debt.
The journal encouraged cross-fertilization without requiring contributors to abandon their disciplinary methods.
The plant’s flowering structure can promote cross-fertilization between individuals.
The lesson distinguished cross-fertilization from the transfer of pollen itself.
Nearby words
Word forms
- Base
- cross-fertilization
Usage notes
Usually uncountable. US cross-fertilization; UK cross-fertilisation is an alias, not another entry. Biological and intellectual senses are distinguished. Register: formal. Commonness: moderately common (qualitative editorial estimate, informed by dictionaries/corpus).
Practice this word in a sentenceYour margin notes
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