Barren,

6 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Barren \Bar"ren\ (b[a^]r"ren), a. [OE. barein, OF. brehaing,
     fem. brehaigne, baraigne, F. br['e]haigne; of uncertain
     origin; cf. Arm. br['e]kha[~n], markha[~n], 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; -- said of women and female animals.
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              She was barren of children.           --Bp. Hall.
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     2. Not producing vegetation, or useful vegetation; sterile.
        "Barren mountain tracts." --Macaulay.
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     3. Unproductive; fruitless; unprofitable; empty.
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              Brilliant but barren reveries.        --Prescott.
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              Some schemes will appear barren of hints and matter.
                                                    --Swift.
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     4. Mentally dull; stupid. --Shak.
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     {Barren flower}, a flower which has only stamens without a
        pistil, or which has neither stamens nor pistils.
  
     {Barren Grounds} (Geog.), a vast tract in British America
        northward of the forest regions.
  
     {Barren Ground bear} (Zool.), a peculiar bear, inhabiting the
        Barren Grounds, now believed to be a variety of the brown
        bear of Europe.
  
     {Barren Ground caribou} (Zool.), a small reindeer ({Rangifer
        Gr[oe]nlandicus}) peculiar to the Barren Grounds and
        Greenland.
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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Barren \Bar"ren\, n.
     1. A tract of barren land.
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     2. pl. 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.
        [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  barren
       adj 1: 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" [syn: {bare}, {bleak}, {desolate}, {stark}]
       2: not bearing offspring; "a barren woman"; "learned early in
          his marriage that he was sterile"
       3: incapable of sustaining life; "the dead and barren Moon"
       n : an uninhabited wilderness that is worthless for cultivation;
           "the barrens of central Africa"; "the trackless wastes of
           the desert" [syn: {waste}, {wasteland}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  160 Moby Thesaurus words for "barren":
     abortive, acarpous, arid, bare, blah, bland, blank, bleached,
     bleak, bloodless, bootless, celibate, characterless, childless,
     clear, cold, colorless, counterproductive, dead, depleted, desert,
     desolate, devoid, dismal, draggy, drained, drearisome, dreary,
     dried-up, dry, dryasdust, dull, dusty, earthbound, effete,
     elephantine, empty, etiolated, exhausted, fade, fallow, fatuitous,
     fatuous, featureless, feckless, flat, fruitless, futile, gainless,
     gaunt, gelded, heavy, ho-hum, hollow, impotent, impoverished,
     inadequate, inane, ineffective, ineffectual, inefficacious,
     inexcitable, infecund, infertile, inoperative, insipid, invalid,
     irreclaimable, issueless, jejune, leached, leaden, lifeless,
     literal, low-spirited, menopausal, mundane, nonfertile,
     nonproducing, nonproductive, nonprolific, nonremunerative,
     nugacious, nugatory, null, null and void, of no force, otiose,
     pale, pallid, parched, pedestrian, plodding, pointless, poky,
     ponderous, poor, profitless, prosaic, prosing, prosy, rewardless,
     sine prole, slow, solemn, spiritless, staid, sterile, stiff,
     stodgy, stolid, stuffy, sucked dry, superficial, tasteless,
     tedious, teemless, unavailing, uncultivable, uncultivated,
     unfanciful, unfertile, unfruitful, unideal, unimaginative,
     uninspired, uninventive, unlively, unoriginal, unplowed, unpoetic,
     unproductive, unprofitable, unprolific, unrelieved, unremunerative,
     unrewarding, unromantic, unromanticized, unsown, untilled, useless,
     vacant, vacuous, vain, vapid, virgin, void, waste, wasted,
     wasteland, white, wild, wilderness, wildness, with nothing inside,
     without content, without issue, wooden, worn-out
  
  

From Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary [easton]:

  Barren
     For a woman to be barren was accounted a severe punishment among
     the Jews (Gen. 16:2; 30:1-23; 1 Sam. 1:6, 27; Isa. 47:9; 49:21;
     Luke 1:25). Instances of barrenness are noticed (Gen. 11:30;
     25:21; 29:31; Judg. 13:2, 3; Luke 1:7, 36).
     

From U.S. Gazetteer Counties (2000) [gaz-county]:

  Barren -- U.S. County in Kentucky
     Population (2000):    38033
     Housing Units (2000): 17095
     Land area (2000):     490.973907 sq. miles (1271.616528 sq. km)
     Water area (2000):    8.955255 sq. miles (23.194002 sq. km)
     Total area (2000):    499.929162 sq. miles (1294.810530 sq. km)
     Located within:       Kentucky (KY), FIPS 21
     Location:             36.984455 N, 85.933483 W
     Headwords:
      Barren
      Barren, KY
      Barren County
      Barren County, KY