Meaning of BARREN
Pronunciation: | | 'barun
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WordNet Dictionary |
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- [n] an uninhabited wilderness that is worthless for cultivation; "the barrens of central Africa"; "the trackless wastes of the desert"
- [adj] incapable of sustaining life; "the dead and barren Moon"
- [adj] not bearing offspring; "a barren woman"; "learned early in his marriage that he was sterile"
- [adj] not fertile or productive; "a barren tree"; "soil too infertile to sustain real pasture"
- [adj] without offspring; "in some societies a barren woman is rejected by her tribesmen"
- [adj] 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"
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| Synonyms: | | bare, bleak, childless, dead, desolate, infertile, inhospitable, stark, sterile, unfertile, unfruitful, waste, wasteland |
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| See Also: | | heath, heathland, wild, wilderness | |
Webster's 1913 Dictionary |
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\Bar"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.
She was barren of children. --Bp. Hall.
2. Not producing vegetation, or useful vegetation; ?rile.
``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 as 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.
\Bar"ren\, n.
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.
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Easton Bible Dictionary |
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| Definition: | | 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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Thesaurus Terms |
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| Related Terms: | | 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 |
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