barren
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
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: barrens
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: Sol squinted out over the barrens to where the mountains shimmered in the heat haze.
ref: 1990, Dan Simmons, The Fall of Hyperion, 1st edition, New York: Doubleday, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 165:
glosses: An area of low fertility and habitation, a desolate place.
examples: text: The pine barrens are a site lonely enough to suit any hermit.
text: Snow Lies now four & five feet deep upon the Ground & the Air looks so Hazey that we think it Prudent to Return upon the Rocks & Barrens (for so they Call the Places where Wood does not Grow) we find that the wind had drifted the Snow Very thin Here we observe Some few Plants (1) Fir Moss, *Lycopodium Selago, (2) Rhein Deer Moss, Lichen Rangiferinus [Cladonia sp.], (3) A Kind of Horned Liverwort, Lichen, (4) a Plant that has very much the Appearance of Crow Berries, Empetrum [*Empetrum nigrum L.] of which I have only got the female which has 10 Stigmata.
ref: 1971 [1766], Averil M. Lysaght, Joseph Banks in Newfoundland and Labrador, 1766: His Diary, Manuscripts, and Collections, Univ of California Press, →ISBN, page 121:
text: Here it was now, by the side of a Swamp in the Barrens of Newfoundland, threadbare, wet, dirty.
ref: 1968 (originally written: 1794), Aaron Thomas, The Newfoundland Journal of Aaron Thomas, page 104
text: What is known of it consists of a rocky and barren soil, steep hills covered with bad wood, some narrow and sandy valleys, extensive plains covered either with heath, or with rocky surfaces, more or less extensive, where not a tree or shrub is to be seen, and which are from thence usually called Barrens.
ref: 1819, Lewis Amadeus Anspach, A History of the Island of Newfoundland: Containing a Description of the Island, the Banks, the Fisheries and Trade of Newfoundland and the Coast of Labrador, page 294:
text: The 'barrens' of Newfoundland are those districts which occupy the summits of the hills and ridges, and other elevated and exposed tracts. They are covered with a thin and scrubby vegetation, consisting of berry-bearing plants and dwarf bushes of various species, and are somewhat similar in appearance to the moorlands of the north of England, differing only in the kind of vegetation.
ref: 1843, Joseph Beete Jukes, General Report of the Geological Survey of Newfoundland: Executed Under the Direction of the Government and Legislature of the Colony During the Years 1839 and 1840, page 22:
text: In Newfound-land there are barrens of many miles in extent, high, and, comparatively speaking, dry plateaus; but the barrens in the provinces I am speaking of vary from a little open space of a few acres to a plain of five or six miles[…]
ref: 1879, Littell's Living Age, page 362:
text: The 'barrens' are covered with a rich carpet of moss of every shade and colour, and abound in all sorts of wild berries, pleasing both to the eye and taste.
ref: 1897, Moses Harvey, Newfoundland in 1897, page 150:
text: [...] the Arctic strip extends from the exposed coasts of the outer islands, in onto the mainland for from one to three or four miles as a practically unbroken "barren," sprinkled with lichen-covered ledges and carpeted with turf of reindeer lichen, sphagnum, Empetrum, sedges, creeping willows, and various other species of herbaceous plants, including the following, kindly determined for us by Dr. B. L. Robinson of the Gray herbarium[…]
ref: 1907, Charles Wendell Townsend, Glover Morrill Allen, Birds of Labrador, page 282:
text: No pan is more rugged and inhospitable than these 'barrens,' the vast rolling plateaux of the interior, broken by stunted groups of wind-tom trees Only at the plateaux' edges.
ref: 1947, Väinö Tanner, Outlines of the Geography, Life & Customs of Newfoundland-Labrador, page 348:
text: Habitat: Bogs, Heaths (known as 'Barrens' in Newfoundland) and rough meadows near boglands. Range In the eastern area: Manitoba eastward; including northern Minnesota to Newfoundland (A.B. Klots).
ref: 1976, Bernard S. Jackson (Entomologist), Butterflies of Oxen Pond Botanic Park: Their Conservation and Management, page 36:
glosses: In particular, a usually elevated and flat expanse of land that only supports the growth of small trees and shrubs, and sometimes mosses or heathers, berries, and other marshy or moory vegetation, but little agriculture and few people.
Derived terms: urchin barren