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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Barren \Bar"ren\ (b[a^]r"ren), adjective [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.
She was barren of children. --Bp. Hall.
2. Not producing vegetation, or useful vegetation; sterile. ''Barren mountain tracts.'' --Macaulay.
3. Unproductive; fruitless; unprofitable; empty.
Brilliant but barren reveries. --Prescott.
Some schemes will appear barren of hints and matter. --Swift.
4. Mentally dull; stupid. --Shak.
{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} (Zo["o]l.), a peculiar bear, inhabiting the Barren Grounds, now believed to be a variety of the brown bear of Europe.
{Barren Ground caribou} (Zo["o]l.), a small reindeer ({Rangifer Gr[oe]nlandicus}) peculiar to the Barren Grounds and Greenland.
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Barren \Bar"ren\, noun
1. A tract of barren land.
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.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
barren
adjective
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"
noun: 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 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
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).
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