Emily Dickinson Lexicon

STE-RIL'I-TY, n. [L. sterilitas; Fr. sterilité; It. sterilità.]

1. Barrenness; unproductiveness; unfruitfulness; the quality or state of producing little or nothing; as, the sterility land or soil. – Bacon.
2. Barrenness; unfruitfulness; the state of not producing young; as of animals.
3. Barrenness of ideas or sentiments, as in writings.
4. Want of fertility or the power of producing sentiment as, the sterility of an author or of his mind.