Sterile

How to spell sterile

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce sterile

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does sterile mean?

1. adjectiveCompletely free from bacteria and other living microorganisms.
2. adjectiveUnable to produce offspring, crops, or any kind of growth.

Sterile in a sentence

• The nurse opened a sterile pack of surgical instruments.

• Years of overfarming left the soil dry and sterile.

• The laboratory keeps the work surface sterile before testing samples.

• The mule is sterile and cannot breed.

Where does sterile come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin sterilis, which meant 'barren' or 'unfruitful', describing land that grew nothing or an animal that could not breed. That Latin term is thought to trace back to an older root linked to the idea of being stiff or rigid, and it is distantly related to the Greek steiros, used of a barren cow. English took the word in through French in the early 1500s, first applying it to soil and living things that produced no offspring. The modern medical sense, meaning 'free from germs', only developed much later, in the nineteenth century, alongside the rise of antiseptic surgery. The spelling keeps the Latin -ile ending, which is the easiest part to slip on, since the vowel before the final l is an unstressed schwa rather than a clear sound.

How the word is built

• sterile (from Latin sterilis: barren, unfruitful)
• -ile (adjective ending)