barren

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. adj. Not producing offspring.
2. adj. Incapable of producing offspring.
3. adj. Lacking vegetation, especially useful vegetation.
4. adj. Unproductive of results or gains; unprofitable: barren efforts. See Synonyms at futile.
5. adj. Devoid of something specified: writing barren of insight. See Synonyms at empty.
6. adj. Lacking in liveliness or interest.
7. n. A tract of unproductive land, often with a scrubby growth of trees. Often used in the plural.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. Incapable of producing or that does not produce its kind: applied to animals and plants.
2. In particular— Sterile; castrated: said of male animals.
3. Without fruit or seed: said of trees or plants.
4. Bearing no children; childless; without issue: said of a woman.
5. Not bearing or pregnant at the usual season: said of female animals: as, barren heifers.
6. Producing little or no vegetation; unproductive; unfruitful; sterile: applied to land.
7. In mining, unproductive; unprofitable: applied to rocks.
8. Void of vital germs.
9. Mentally unproductive; unresponsive; dull; stupid.
10. Devoid; lacking; wanting: with of: as, a hill barren of trees; a mind barren of ideas.
11. Not producing or leading to anything; profitless; fruitless: as, barren tears; a barren attachment.
12. Destitute of interest or attraction; unsuggestive; uninstructive; bald; bare: as, a barren list of names.
13. n. A tract or region of more or less unproductive land, partly or entirely treeless. The term is best known in the United States as the name of a district in Kentucky, “the Barrens,” underlaid by the subcarboniferous limestone, but possessing a fertile soil, which was nearly or quite treeless when that State began to be settled by the whites, but which at present, where not cultivated, is partly covered with trees. In northeastern Canada the name barrens is given to treeless, grass-covered areas, once the beds of lakes, but now desiccated and in most cases the exact counterpart of various tracts existing in the western United States, and there generally called prairies, but sometimes holes. The pine-barrens of the southern Atlantic States are sandy plains on which is a valuable growth of southern or long-leafed pine, Pinus palustris.
14. To render barren or unproductive.

Wiktionary

1. adj. not comparable unable to bear children; sterile
2. adj. of poor fertility, infertile
3. adj. bleak
4. adj. not productive
5. n. An area of low fertility and habitation, a desolate place.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. adj. Incapable of producing offspring; producing no young; sterile; -- said of women and female animals.
2. adj. Not producing vegetation, or useful vegetation; sterile.
3. adj. Unproductive; fruitless; unprofitable; empty.
4. adj. Mentally dull; stupid.
5. n. A tract of barren land.
6. n. American Elevated lands or plains on which grow small trees, but not timber. They are not necessarily sterile, and are often fertile.

WordNet 3.0

1. adj. completely wanting or lacking
2. adj. not bearing offspring
3. n. an uninhabited wilderness that is worthless for cultivation
4. adj. providing no shelter or sustenance