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