In the 18th century, the Swedish government made coffee and its paraphernalia (including cups and dishes) illegal for its supposed ties to rebellious sentiment.
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
Word of the Day
27 July 2024
BOORISH
(adjective) ill-mannered and coarse and contemptible in behavior or appearance; “was boorish and insensitive”; “the loutish manners of a bully”; “her stupid oafish husband”; “aristocratic contempt for the swinish multitude”
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