barren : Dictionary / Wörterbuch (BEOLINGUS, TU Chemnitz)

English Dictionary: barren	by the DICT Development Group
4 results for barren
From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
barren 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" Synonym(s): bare, barren, bleak, desolate, stark not bearing offspring; "a barren woman"; "learned early in his marriage that he was sterile" completely wanting or lacking; "writing barren of insight"; "young recruits destitute of experience"; "innocent of literary merit"; "the sentence was devoid of meaning" Synonym(s): barren, destitute, devoid, free, innocent n an uninhabited wilderness that is worthless for cultivation; "the barrens of central Africa"; "the trackless wastes of the desert" Synonym(s): barren, waste, wasteland
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]:
Barren \Bar"ren\, a. [OE. barein, OF. brehaing, fem. brehaigne, baraigne, F. br[82]haigne; of uncertain origin; cf. Arm. br[82]kha[ntil], markha[ntil], 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. [bd]Barren mountain tracts.[b8] --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[94]l.), a peculiar bear, inhabiting the Barren Grounds, now believed to be a variety of the brown bear of Europe. {Barren Ground caribou} (Zo[94]l.), a small reindeer ({Rangifer Gr[d2]nlandicus}) peculiar to the Barren Grounds and Greenland.
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]:
Barren \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.
From Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary [easton]:
Barren 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).