From WordNet (r) 2.0 (August 2003) [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 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.
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