A prolific writer, artist, or composer creates numerous works. She is a prolific novelist and short story writer. Prolific, imaginative, ingenious, creative, fertile Additional Synonyms for "prolific" are abundant. Characterized by abundance; large number; wide dissemination. Prodigal; unwieldy; ungainly A prolific writer is one who produces many books, articles, or other works. The adjective "prolific" is used to describe writers, artists, or composers who produce large numbers of documents of various kinds. Another way to think about it is that they have a lot of creativity. Many great writers have been called "prolific." Thomas Hardy was prolific. So was Henry James. Jane Austen, George Eliot, and E. L. White are more recent examples of prolific authors. Musicologists call the composers of polyphonic music "prolific" because they often write several pieces of music each year. The word "prolific" is also used to describe plants that grow rapidly, such as cottonwood trees. Cottonwoods spread out widely in their first few years before growing up into small shrubs, so they are prolific seed-makers. Being "prolific" means producing many works.