BARREN
barren, destitute, devoid, free, innocent
(adjective) completely wanting or lacking; “writing barren of insight”; “young recruits destitute of experience”; “innocent of literary merit”; “the sentence was devoid of meaning”
barren
(adjective) not bearing offspring; “a barren woman”; “learned early in his marriage that he was sterile”
bare, barren, bleak, desolate, stark
(adjective) providing no shelter or sustenance; “bare rocky hills”; “barren lands”; “the bleak treeless regions of the high Andes”; “the desolate surface of the moon”; “a stark landscape”
barren, waste, wasteland
(noun) an uninhabited wilderness that is worthless for cultivation; “the barrens of central Africa”; “the trackless wastes of the desert”
Source: WordNet® 3.1
Etymology
Adjective
barren (comparative barrener or more barren, superlative barrenest or most barren)
(not comparable) Unable to bear children; sterile.
Of poor fertility, infertile; not producing vegetation.
Bleak.
Unproductive; fruitless; unprofitable; empty.
Mentally dull; stupid.
Synonyms
• sterile
Antonyms
• fertile
• fruitful
Noun
barren (plural barrens)
An area of low fertility and habitation, a desolate place.
Anagrams
• Barner
Source: Wiktionary
Bar"ren, a. Etym: [OE. barein, OF. brehaing, brehaigne, baraigne, F. bréhaigne; of uncertain origin; cf. Arm. brékha, markha, sterile; LL. brana a sterile mare, principally in Aquitanian and Spanish documents; Bisc. barau, baru, fasting.]
1. Incapable of producing offspring; producing no young; sterile; -- She was barren of children. Bp. Hall.
2. Not producing vegetation, or useful vegetation; "Barren mountain tracts." Macaulay.
3. Unproductive; fruitless; unprofitable; empty. Brilliant but barren reveries. Prescott. Some schemes will appear barren of hints and matter. Swift.
4. Mentally dull; stupid. Shak. Barren flower, a flower which has only stamens without a pistil, or which as neither stamens nor pistils.
– Barren Grounds (Geog.), a vast tract in British America northward of the forest regions.
– Barren Ground bear (Zoöl.), a peculiar bear, inhabiting the Barren Grounds, now believed to be a variety of the brown bear of Europe.
– Barren Ground caribou (Zoöl.), a small reindeer (Rangifer Groenlandicus) peculiar to the Barren Grounds and Greenland.
Bar"ren, n.
1. A tract of barren land.
2. pl.
Definition: Elevated lands or plains on which grow small trees, but not timber; as, pine barrens; oak barrens. They are not necessarily sterile, and are often fertile. [Amer.] J. Pickering.
Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition
Recent Word Finds
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23 January 2025
LEFT
(adjective) being or located on or directed toward the side of the body to the west when facing north; “my left hand”; “left center field”; “the left bank of a river is bank on your left side when you are facing downstream”
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