BARREN

Pronunciation (US):

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IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does barren mean? 

• BARREN (noun)
  The noun BARREN has 1 sense:

1. an uninhabited wilderness that is worthless for cultivation

  Familiarity information: BARREN used as a noun is very rare.

• BARREN (adjective)
  The adjective BARREN has 3 senses:

1. providing no shelter or sustenance

2. not bearing offspring

3. completely wanting or lacking

  Familiarity information: BARREN used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BARREN (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

An uninhabited wilderness that is worthless for cultivation

Classified under:

Nouns denoting spatial position

Synonyms:

barren; waste; wasteland

Context example:

the trackless wastes of the desert

Hypernyms ("barren" is a kind of...):

wild; wilderness (a wild and uninhabited area left in its natural condition)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "barren"):

heath; heathland (a tract of level wasteland; uncultivated land with sandy soil and scrubby vegetation)

Derivation:

barren (providing no shelter or sustenance)

• BARREN (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Providing no shelter or sustenance

Synonyms:

bare; barren; bleak; desolate; stark

Context example:

a stark landscape

Similar:

inhospitable (unfavorable to life or growth)

Derivation:

barren (an uninhabited wilderness that is worthless for cultivation)

barrenness (the quality of yielding nothing of value)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Not bearing offspring

Context example:

learned early in his marriage that he was sterile

Similar:

infertile; sterile; unfertile (incapable of reproducing)

Derivation:

barrenness (the state (usually of a woman) of having no children or being unable to have children)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Completely wanting or lacking

Synonyms:

barren; destitute; devoid; free; innocent

Context example:

the sentence was devoid of meaning

Similar:

nonexistent (not having existence or being or actuality)

 Context examples 

“I am glad to say that my investigation has not been entirely barren,” he remarked.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He knew there were no seas or ships in the heart of the barren lands, just as he had known there was no cartridge in the empty rifle.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

For example, in the Negev Desert along the Egypt-Israel border, the Israeli side's dunes are stabilized by vegetation; on the Egyptian side, however, the dunes are moving because overgrazing has left them barren.

(Sleeping sands of the Kalahari awaken after more than 10,000 years, NSF)

According to the scientist, turning barren land into fertile farmland will enable China to feed the entire country.

(Saltwater Rice Successfully Harvested by Chinese Scientists, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

I saw, with surprise and grief, the leaves decay and fall, and nature again assume the barren and bleak appearance it had worn when I first beheld the woods and the lovely moon.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

We had sailed since daylight across a sea barren of seals, and were now running into the herd.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Refuse to be my wife, and you limit yourself for ever to a track of selfish ease and barren obscurity.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

During this time we traversed a barren and forbidding country, which alternated between stony desert and desolate marshes full of many wild-fowl, upon the north and east of the cliffs.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

For it is not the least of its terrors that this evil thing is rooted deep in all good; in soil barren of holy memories it cannot rest.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

“Small! Clams and scallops! Ask me to your table to partake of the dainty of the town, and when I come a barren welcome and a bare board! Where is my spear-bearer?”

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)