cross-fertilization
noun
Cross-fertilization — the fruitful exchange of ideas across different traditions
Definition
Interchange between different cultures or different ways of thinking that is mutually productive and beneficial; "the cross-fertilization of science and the creative arts"
In depth
Cross-fertilization, used figuratively, describes the productive interchange between different cultures, disciplines, or ways of thinking, an exchange that enriches both sides through their contact with each other. The word borrows from biology to describe a distinctly intellectual or creative phenomenon, the new ideas that emerge only when separate traditions meet.
Origin
The word borrows its core metaphor directly from botany, where cross-fertilization describes the pollination of one plant by another genetically distinct one, producing offspring with traits from both parents. Its figurative use, applied to culture and ideas, emerged in the twentieth century as a vivid way to describe intellectual hybridity, suggesting that new and vital ideas, like new and vital plants, often arise only from genuine difference meeting and combining.
Usage examples
"The university actively encouraged cross-fertilization between its science and humanities departments."
"Jazz emerged from a remarkable cross-fertilization of African rhythmic traditions and European harmonic structures."
"The conference's real value lay less in any single talk than in the cross-fertilization that happened over coffee between sessions."
How to use it
Cross-fertilization suits intellectual, artistic, and academic writing especially well, useful whenever a writer wants to describe innovation arising specifically from the meeting of previously separate traditions or fields, rather than from isolated development within a single one.
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