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The Oxford dictionary says that it means plentiful. Can it be used to express a connotation like "Very talented and prolific singer"?

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“Very talented and prolific singer” is a perfectly normal use of the word prolific. It means a singer who wrote or performed a lot of songs (prolific) and who did that well (talented).

Prolific alone is only an indication of quantity, not quality, even though prolific tends to be slightly laudative. You can say that someone is a “prolific but mediocre singer”.

Note that prolific generally means “which produces a large amount” or “which gives a large amount”, not “which contains a large amount”.

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Yes, "prolific" means someone who is prolific produces a lot of something, especially works of art, books, etc. for example:

Since then, Hull has became hockey's most prolific scorer.

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Not an incorrect usage but not the best wording either. Since prolific essentially means "produces many", is the writer of this sentence meaning that the singer sings often? (Prolific doesn't mean often.) Sings many songs? etc. The sentence isn't totally clear.

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  • I would interepret "prolific singer" to mean their songs are heard often on the radio. NOAD mentions in its definition of prolific: "(of an artist, author, or composer) producing many works : he was a prolific composer of operas." With that in mind, I'd say that Elton John, Bono, and Billy Joel are prolific singers. An antonym might be obscure, e.g., Liz Longley is an obscure singer.
    – J.R. ♦
    Nov 1, 2014 at 23:15
  • I would interpret this to mean that the singer is, as many are, also a songwriter, and has written many songs.
    – David Siegel
    Apr 26, 2019 at 1:30

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