Fertile Crescent

noun

1. an agricultural region extending from the Levant to Iraq.
2. an area in the Middle East: formerly fertile, now partly desert.

Fertile Crescent

noun

1. an area of fertile land in the Middle East, extending around the Rivers Tigris and Euphrates in a semicircle from Israel to the Persian Gulf, where the Sumerian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Phoenician, and Hebrew civilizations flourished

Word History and Origins

Origin of Fertile Crescent¹

First recorded in 1910–15

Example Sentences

After all, in the 4,000 years since humanity’s first empire formed in the Fertile Crescent, at least 200 empires have risen, collided with other imperial powers, and in time collapsed.

From Salon

The written word on scrolls, tablets and early books — in the ancient empires of the Fertile Crescent, in Greece and Rome and the West through the Middle Ages — was mostly intended to be spoken, to be read out loud.

From Los Angeles Times

Human-made climate change is driving a yearslong extreme drought in Iran, Iraq and Syria, an area that encompasses a region known as the Fertile Crescent and a cradle of civilization, scientists said on Wednesday.

From New York Times

Two-thousand years ago, forts were constructed by the Roman Empire across the northern Fertile Crescent, spanning from what is now western Syria to northwestern Iraq.

From Science Daily

By about 1,000 years later, all of the Neolithic "founder crops" -- emmer wheat, einkorn wheat, hulled barley, rye, peas, lentils, bitter vetch, chickpeas and flax -- were being cultivated in what is now called the Fertile Crescent.

From Science Daily