noun
definition
An area of low fertility and habitation, a desolate place.
example
The pine barrens are a site lonely enough to suit any hermit.
adjective
definition
Unable to bear children; sterile.
example
I silently wept as my daughter's husband rejected her. What would she do now that she was no longer a maiden but also barren?
definition
Of poor fertility, infertile; not producing vegetation.
definition
Bleak.
definition
Unproductive; fruitless; unprofitable; empty.
definition
Mentally dull; stupid.
Examples of barren in a Sentence
The site of the town is a barren, rocky mountain valley.
The district is the most barren and backward portion of the province.
Maybe he wasn't a saddle bum, but only a greenhorn would think he could live off the barren land that surrounded them.
The country was mostly poor and barren, sandy hillocks, with scanty growth of spinifex.
As a hungry herd of cattle keeps well together when crossing a barren field, but gets out of hand and at once disperses uncontrollably as soon as it reaches rich pastures, so did the army disperse all over the wealthy city.
The ordinary musk-rat is one of several species of a genus peculiar to America, where it is distributed in suitable localities in the northern part of the continent, extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Rio Grande to the barren grounds bordering the Arctic seas.
The other view traces it to khem or khame, hieroglyph khmi, which denotes black earth as opposed to barren sand, and occurs in Plutarch as XvAda; on this derivation alchemy is explained as meaning the " Egyptian art."
The northern section is more broken and rugged; barren ridges and low rocky mountain-ranges, interspersed with fertile valleys, being its characteristic features.
It is these heavy rains, of brief duration, when great volumes of water rapidly run off from the barren slopes, that cause the deep channels, or arroyas, which cross the desert.
Having left the tree-line far behind him, nothing is visible to the traveller for miles around but barren peaks and torn crags in indescribable confusion.
This constitution of the great mass of the central Apennines has in all ages exercised an important influence upon the character of this portion of Italy, which may be considered as divided by nature into two great regions, a cold and barren upland country, bordered on both sides by rich and fertile tracts, enjoying a warm but temperate climate.
Leo Africanus rightly describes its lower course as "severing by its winding channel the barren and naked soil from the green and fruitful."
The victory of the 3rd of June was barren.
It is a barren rock, on the summit of which stands a lighthouse visible at night for 21 m.
Maceio is attractively situated in the midst of large plantations of coco-nut and dende palms, though the broad sandy beach in front and the open sun-burned plain behind give a barren character to its surroundings.
The reckless destruction of forests along the watercourses also adds to the barren aspect of the country.
The eastern part, however, contains large barren plains, showing some stunted vegetation, and having numerous saline deposits.
Russian mediation proved barren, but Gallatin persevered, catching at every opportunity for negotiation.
The, 5th century, barren of progress in methods of husbandry, was in its early years moderately prosperous.
Some of the volcanic soil is barren, but much of the district is clothed in luxuriant vegetation.
It is full of fish, and the neighbouring country, though barren and uncultivated, contains quantities of game.
With all its defective psychology, its barren logic, its immature technique, it emphasized two great and necessary truths, firstly, the absolute responsibility of the individual as the moral unit, and, secondly, the autocracy of the will.
Thorpe Cloud, it is highly fossiliferous, but it is usually somewhat barren except for abundant crinoids and smaller organisms. It is polished in large slabs at Ashford, where crinoidal, black and "rosewood" marbles are produced.
Blanchard published some Recherches sur les caracteres osteo- logiques des oiseaux appliquees a la classification naturelle de ces animaux, strongly urging the superiority of such characters over those drawn from the bill or feet, which, he remarks, though they may have sometimes given correct notions, have mostly led to mistakes, and, if observations of habits and food have sometimes afforded happy results, they have often been deceptive; so that, should more be wanted than to draw up a mere inventory of creation or trace the distinctive outline of each species, zoology without anatomy would remain a barren study.
These animals also occur in the desert district south of the Tarim; but are most abundant in the deserts and mountains to the southward of Kuruktagh, where there are a few brackish-water pools, and are also common in the barren mountains between Kuruktagh and Choetagh.
Barren Island is a volcano of the general Sunda group which includes also the Pegu group to which Narcondam belongs.
Camden, about the end of the 17th century, wrote that "the people are very industrious, so that though the soil about it be barren and improfitable, not fit to live on, they have so flourished..
The surrounding heights, though rugged and barren, produce some of the finest Servian tobacco.
Except on the scattered oases, where irrigation from springs and mountain streams has reclaimed small patches, the desert is barren and forbidding in the extreme.
They might be like a beautiful garden or a barren desert.
The greater part of Patagonia is comparatively barren and has no arboreal growth, except in the well-watered valleys of the Andean foothills.
It is not to be supposed that this antarctic element, to which Professor Tate has applied the name Euronotian, entered a desert barren of all life.
On either side of the river valley a steppe-like desert, covered in the spring with verdure, the rest of the year barren and brown, stretches away as far as the eye can see.
It is divided into six provinces, and covers a broken, mountainous region, partially barren in its higher elevations but traversed by deep, warm, fertile valleys.
The latter class is formed by waters that fall on the barren mountain-sides and rush down in torrents, forming in the valleys shallow bodies of water yellow with the mud held in suspension.
In 1840 he performed a feat of extraordinary personal daring, travelling all the way along the barren sea-coast of the Great Australian Bight, from Spencer Gulf to King George Sound.
The marriage was barren.
There is no railway within 20 m., and the surrounding country is barren and desolate.
Some of the smallest islands are barren rocks, but the majority of them are covered with forests.
To the south is the valley of the Arve (descending from the snows of the Mont Blanc chain), which unites with that of the Rhone a little below the town; while behind the Arve the grey and barren rocks of the Petit Saleve rise like a wall, which in turn is overtopped by the distant and ethereal snows of Mont Blanc. Yet the actual site of the town is not as picturesque as that of several other spots in Switzerland.
Round this distinction a rather barren controversy has raged, and almost all modern philosophers have labelled themselves either "Intuitionalist" (a priori) or "Empiricist" (a posteriori) according to the view they take of knowledge.
This has few or no perfect flowers, the whole truss consisting of the more showy barren ones, which makes it much more rounded, and, together with the pure whiteness of the flowers, has led to its being popularly known as the Snowball Tree.
The scene cuts to a ceremony for the forgotten soldiers that takes place on a barren wasteland.
As we start to rebuild, this hillside will remain barren, a memorial to heroes fallen.
This picturesque area engulfs an enormous barren plateau which consists of about 640 acres.
Made popular by three Brazilian women who brought their country's trend to the states, a Brazilian wax is the most barren form of hair removal for the bikini area.
He described it as barren and sterile, and almost devoid of animals, the only one of any importance somewhat resembling a raccoon - a strange creature, which advanced by great bounds or leaps instead of walking, using only its hind legs, and covering 12 or 15 ft.
Narcondam, Barren Island and the Invisible Bank, a great danger of these seas, are in a line almost parallel to the Andamans inclining towards them from north to south.
Barren Island was last in eruption in 1803, but there is still a thin column of steam from a sulphur bed at the top and a variable hot spring at the point where the last outburst of lava flowed into the sea.
The marriage proved barren.