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

barren \bar"ren\ ba^r"ren, a. oe. barein, of. brehaing,
   fem. brehaigne, baraigne, f. br'ehaigne; of uncertain
   origin; cf. arm. br'ekha~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.
      1913 webster

            she was barren of children.           --bp. hall.
      1913 webster

   2. not producing vegetation, or useful vegetation; sterile.
      "barren mountain tracts." --macaulay.
      1913 webster

   3. unproductive; fruitless; unprofitable; empty.
      1913 webster

            brilliant but barren reveries.        --prescott.
      1913 webster

            some schemes will appear barren of hints and matter.
                                                  --swift.
      1913 webster

   4. mentally dull; stupid. --shak.
      1913 webster

   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
      groenlandicus peculiar to the barren grounds and
      greenland.
      1913 webster
see also:
barren flower barren grounds barren ground bear barren ground caribou rangifer groenlandicus 

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

barren \bar"ren\, n.
   1. a tract of barren land.
      1913 webster

   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

[3] : WordNet (r) 2.0

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
see also:
bare bleak desolate stark waste wasteland 

[4] : Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0

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

[5] : Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary

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.
   

[6] : U.S. Gazetteer Counties (2000)

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

Barren >> B Words
Barren, definition of term: Barren
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