barren

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   Not bearing children, childless

   Not bearing children, childless; hence also unable to bear children, sterile.

   • I silently wept as my daughter's husband rejected her. What would she do now that she was no longer a maiden but also barren?
   • Forget not, in your speed, Antonius, To touch Calpurnia; for our elders say, The barren, touched in this holy chase, Shake off their sterile curse.
   • The druids […] believed that mistletoe could make barren animals fecund, and that it was an antidote to all poisons.
2. 2

   Not bearing seed or fruit.

3. 3

   Of poor fertility, infertile

   Of poor fertility, infertile; not producing vegetation; desert, waste.

   • barren mountain tracts
   • We have descended Tian Shan and entered the Taklamakan Desert, a barren landscape painted in ecru—no shrubs, no grass, only waves upon waves of naked ridges the color of buff, the highest few spotted with white specks of snow.
   • Terraforming even a barren planet often involves significant financial and ethical hurdles.
4. ›+ 6 more definitionsshow fewer

   1. 4

      Devoid, lacking.

      • August 28, 1731, Jonathan Swift, letter to John Gay But schemes are perfectly accidental. Some will appear barren of hints and matter, but prove to be fruitful.
   2. 5

      Devoid of interest or attraction, poor, bleak.

      • As they turned into Hertford Street they startled a robin from the poet's head on a barren fountain, and he fled away with a cameo note.
   3. 6

      Unproductive, fruitless, unprofitable

      Unproductive, fruitless, unprofitable; empty, hollow, vain.

      • brilliant but barren reveries
      • A third is wroth: ‘Is this an hour ⁠For private sorrow’s barren song, ⁠When more and more the people throng The chairs and thrones of civil power?’
   4. 7

      Mentally dull or unproductive

      Mentally dull or unproductive; stupid or intellectually fallow.

      • Set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too.
   5. 8

      An area of low fertility and habitation, a desolate place.

      • Sol squinted out over the barrens to where the mountains shimmered in the heat haze.
   6. 9

      In particular, a usually elevated and flat expanse of land that only supports the growth…

      In particular, a usually elevated and flat expanse of land that only supports the growth of small trees and shrubs, and sometimes mosses or heathers, berries, and other marshy or moory vegetation, but little agriculture and few people.

      • The pine barrens are a site lonely enough to suit any hermit.
      • Here it was now, by the side of a Swamp in the Barrens of Newfoundland, threadbare, wet, dirty.

The neighborhood

• synonymsterile
• synonymfruitless
• antonymfertile
• antonymfruitful