Sterilize

Part of speech: verb (v.)

1. To make sterile or unproductive; to impoverish, as land; to exhaust of fertility. [R.] "Sterilizing the earth." Woodward.

2. To deprive of the power of reproducing; to render incapable of germination or fecundation; to make sterile.

3. 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.