Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Sterilize

Ster′il·ize (stĕr′ĭl·īz), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Sterilized; p. pr. & vb. n. Sterilizing.] [Cf. F. stériliser.] 1. To make sterile or unproductive; to impoverish, as land; to exhaust of fertility. [R.] "Sterilizing the earth." Woodward.

2. (Biol.) (a) To deprive of the power of reproducing; to render incapable of germination or fecundation; to make sterile. (b) To destroy all spores or germs in (an organic fluid or mixture), as by heat, so as to prevent the development of bacterial or other organisms.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.