barren
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈbæɹən/
enpr: bă'rən
note: without the Mary–marry–merry merger
ipa: /ˈbæɹən/
note: Mary–marry–merry merger
ipa: /ˈbɛəɹən/
rhymes: -æɹən
homophone: baron
Forms: form: barrener
form: more barren
form: barrenest
form: most barren
Etymology: From Middle English bareyne, from Anglo-Norman baraigne, baraing (“sterile; barren”), of obscure origin; probably from a Germanic language, perhaps Frankish *baʀ (“bare; barren”), from Proto-Germanic *bazaz (“bare”). If so, a doublet of bare.
Senses: examples: text: 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?
text: Forget not, in your speed, Antonius,
To touch Calpurnia; for our elders say,
The barren, touched in this holy chase,
Shake off their sterile curse.
ref: 1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals):
text: The druids […] believed that mistletoe could make barren animals fecund, and that it was an antidote to all poisons.
ref: 2014 December 23, Olivia Judson, “The hemiparasite season [print version: Under the hemiparasite, International New York Times, 24–25 December 2014, p. 7]”, in The New York Times:
glosses: Not bearing children, childless; hence also unable to bear children, sterile.
raw_tags: of people and animals
glosses: Not bearing seed or fruit.
raw_tags: of plants
examples: text: barren mountain tracts
ref: 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter I, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC:
text: We have descended Tian Shan and entered the Taklamakan Desert, a barren landscape painted in ecru—no shrubs, no grass, only waves upon waves of naked ridges the color of buff, the highest few spotted with white specks of snow.
ref: 2009, Y.J. Zhu, “Taklamakan Desert Moon Ride”, in Lucy McCauley, editor, The Best Women's Travel Writing 2009: True Stories from Around the World (Travelers' Tales), →ISBN, →ISSN, →OCLC, →OL, page 154:
text: Terraforming even a barren planet often involves significant financial and ethical hurdles.
ref: 2017, BioWare, Mass Effect: Andromeda (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Technology: Terraforming Codex entry:
glosses: Of poor fertility, infertile; not producing vegetation; desert, waste.
raw_tags: of places
examples: August 28, 1731, Jonathan Swift, letter to John Gay
But schemes are perfectly accidental. Some will appear barren of hints and matter, but prove to be fruitful.
glosses: Devoid, lacking.
examples: text: As they turned into Hertford Street they startled a robin from the poet's head on a barren fountain, and he fled away with a cameo note.
ref: 1922, Michael Arlen, “Epilogue Chapter IV”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days, section 2:
glosses: Devoid of interest or attraction, poor, bleak.
examples: text: brilliant but barren reveries
ref: 1843, William H[ickling] Prescott, History of the Conquest of Mexico, […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), New York, N.Y.: Harper and Brothers, […], →OCLC:
text: A third is wroth: ‘Is this an hour
⁠For private sorrow’s barren song,
⁠When more and more the people throng
The chairs and thrones of civil power?’
ref: 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XXI”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 35:
text: When the entire coast-line becomes a sea of waving palms, with Chinese and Malay villages fringing the shores, which are at present mere barren wastes of mangroves, with plantations of pepper, of gambier, and of tapioca and rice, the Northern Territory, backed up by the unswerving energy of the Australian squatter, miner, and planter, will present a spectacle almost unknown in the scheme of British colonization.
ref: 1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 270:
text: Rooney had been suffered a barren spell for England with only one goal in 15 games but he was in no mood to ignore the gifts on offer in front of an increasingly subdued Bulgarian support.
ref: 2011 September 2, Phil McNulty, “Bulgaria 0-3 England”, in BBC:
text: As the glut of new orders placed in the optimistic pre-pandemic years (worth billions of pounds) reaches its conclusion, production lines in Newton Aycliffe, Derby and Newport face a potentially barren future - as well as job losses that will be devastating for their communities and supply chains.
ref: 2024 March 20, Ben Jones, “Suppliers' uncertain wait for new trains”, in RAIL, number 1005, page 36:
glosses: Unproductive, fruitless, unprofitable; empty, hollow, vain.
examples: text: Set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too.
ref: c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:
glosses: Mentally dull or unproductive; stupid or intellectually fallow.
Synonyms: sterile
fruitless
Derived terms: barren-ground caribou
barrenly
barrenness
barren strawberry
barrenwort
nonbarren
overbarren
semibarren
unbarren