barren
[bar-uh n]
- not producing or incapable of producing offspring; sterile: a barren woman.
- unproductive; unfruitful: barren land.
- without capacity to interest or attract: a barren period in American architecture.
- mentally unproductive; dull; stupid.
- not producing results; fruitless: a barren effort.
- destitute; bereft; lacking (usually followed by of): barren of tender feelings.
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- Usually barrens. level or slightly rolling land, usually with a sandy soil and few trees, and relatively infertile.
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Origin of barren
1200–50; Middle English bareyn(e), barayn(e) < Anglo-French barai(gn)e, Old French brahaigne (French bréhaigne (of animals) sterile), akin to Spanish breña scrubby, uncultivated ground, Upper Italian barena land along a lagoon covered by high water; apparently < Celtic, compare Welsh braenar, Irish branar fallow land, but derivational details unclear
Synonyms
See more synonyms for barren on Thesaurus.com1. childless, unprolific, infertile. 2. infertile, depleted, waste. 5. ineffectual, ineffective.
Synonym study
2. See bare1.
Antonyms
1–6. fertile.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for barren
Contemporary Examples
First, though, he has to be shocked into recognizing the barren waste of his spiritual life – by spirits.
Without it in the atmosphere, the Earth would be a barren, frozen wasteland.
Ibrahim Hijazi walked me through his barren house, emptied ahead of the demolition.
Shibirghan, the capital of Jowzjan province, is a remote and barren place, even by Afghan standards.
The Warlord Who Defines Afghanistan: An Excerpt From Bruce Riedel’s ’What We Won’Bruce Riedel
July 27, 2014
In an ugly, barren press conference, they demanded a new election.
Historical Examples
They are barren, till the imagination has tenanted them with possibilities of danger and dismay.
MalboneThomas Wentworth Higginson
How long should its followers lurk in the barren lands of the North?
The Story of the Malakand Field ForceSir Winston S. Churchill
But she did not allow herself to fall into the idleness of barren speculation.
The Secret AgentJoseph Conrad
And both were so happy, so all in all to each other, as they left that barren threshold!
Night and Morning, CompleteEdward Bulwer-Lytton
Once the earth was but a ball of dead, cold rock and barren sand.
Classic MythsMary Catherine Judd
barren
- incapable of producing offspring, seed, or fruit; sterilea barren tree
- unable to support the growth of crops, etc; unproductive; barebarren land
- lacking in stimulation or ideas; dulla rather barren play
- not producing worthwhile results; unprofitablea barren period in a writer's life
- (foll by of) totally lacking (in); devoid (of)his speech was barren of wit
- (of rock strata) having no fossils
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Word Origin
C13: from Old French brahain, of uncertain origin
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for barren
adj.
c.1200, from Old French baraigne, baraing "sterile, barren" (12c.), perhaps originally brahain, of obscure derivation, perhaps from a Germanic language. In England, originally used of women, of land in France. Of land in English from late 14c. As a noun, mid-13c., "a barren woman;" later of land.
BARRENS. Elevated lands, or plains upon which grow small trees, but never timber. [Bartlett, "Dictionary of Americanisms," 1848]
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
barren
(băr′ən)- Not producing offspring.
- Incapable of producing offspring.
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The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.