Synonyms for barren
ˈbær ən

Princeton's WordNet(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate these synonyms:

1. barren, waste, wasteland(adj)

   an uninhabited wilderness that is worthless for cultivation

   "the barrens of central Africa"; "the trackless wastes of the desert"

   Synonyms:
   waste product, waste, thriftlessness, permissive waste, wastefulness, waste matter, dissipation, waste material, wasteland

   Antonyms:
   existent, existing, fertile, hospitable

2. bare, barren, bleak, desolate, stark(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"

   Synonyms:
   spare, bare(a), devoid, perfect(a), consummate(a), blunt, unornamented, austere, au naturel(p), bare, raw, marginal, arrant(a), black, severe, gross(a), staring(a), simple(a), stripped, desolate, destitute, mere(a), cutting, everlasting(a), double-dyed(a), crude(a), dim, complete(a), innocent, plain, nude, unsheathed, pure(a), unfinished, stark(a), unadulterated, thoroughgoing(a), free, naked, bleak, unembellished, sodding(a), scanty, stark, utter(a), stern

   Antonyms:
   fertile, existent, existing, hospitable

3. barren(adj)

   not bearing offspring

   "a barren woman"; "learned early in his marriage that he was sterile"

   Synonyms:
   stark, bare, free, innocent, destitute, desolate, devoid, bleak

   Antonyms:
   existing, existent, hospitable, fertile

4. barren, destitute, devoid, free, innocent(adj)

   completely wanting or lacking

   "writing barren of insight"; "young recruits destitute of experience"; "innocent of literary merit"; "the sentence was devoid of meaning"

   Synonyms:
   guiltless, gratis(p), ingenuous, innocuous, indigent, needy, impeccant, complimentary, destitute, loose, costless, liberal, free, stark, unacquainted(p), desolate, gratuitous, clean-handed, impoverished, detached, spare, innocent(p), innocent, poverty-stricken, sinless, devoid, bleak, bare, necessitous

   Antonyms:
   existent, hospitable, fertile, existing

Wiktionary(3.00 / 3 votes)Rate these synonyms:

1. barren(adjective)

   Synonyms:
   sterile

   Antonyms:
   fertile, fruitful

2. barren(adjective)

   unable to bear children; sterile

   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?

   Synonyms:
   sterile

   Antonyms:
   fruitful, fertile

3. barren(adjective)

   of poor fertility, infertile

   Synonyms:
   sterile

   Antonyms:
   fruitful, fertile

4. barren(adjective)

   bleak

   Synonyms:
   sterile

   Antonyms:
   fruitful, fertile

5. barren(adjective)

   not productive

   Synonyms:
   sterile

   Antonyms:
   fertile, fruitful

Editors Contribution(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate these synonyms:

1. empty

   wasteland; has no sight of plants, water, or any form of living things; lifeless

   "the barren wasteland was dry and lifeless"

   Submitted by anonymous on May 3, 2020  

Dictionary of English Synonymes(0.00 / 0 votes)Rate these synonyms:

1. barren(a.)

   Synonyms:
   unprolific, incapable of bearing offspring, not prolific

2. barren(a.)

   Synonyms:
   unfertile, fruitless, unproductive, sterile, ACARPOUS

3. barren(a.)

   Synonyms:
   scanty, not copious

Synonyms, Antonyms & Associated Words(4.00 / 1 vote)Rate these synonyms:

1. barren(a)

   Synonyms:
   sterile, agenestic, infecund, unprolific, unprocreant, unproductive, unfruitful, unfertile, effete, desert, unprofitable, fruitless, unremunerative, empty, stupid, dull, unimaginative, prosaic, devoid, uninspiring, uninteresting

   Antonyms:
   prolific, fecund, virile, fruitful, fertile, teeming

PPDB, the paraphrase database(3.00 / 1 vote)Rate these synonyms:

1. List of paraphrases:

   sterile, arid, infertile, bare, skinned, unproductive, tundra, tailings, desolate, semi-arid

How to pronounce barren?

Alex

US English

Daniel

British

Karen

Australian

Veena

Indian

How to say barren in sign language?

Words popularity by usage frequency

How to use barren in a sentence?

1. Henry George:

   If I have worked harder and built myself a good house while you have been content to live in a hovel, the tax gatherer now comes annually to make me pay a penalty for my energy and industry by taxing me more than you. If I have saved while you wasted, I am [taxed] while you are exempt. If a man built a ship, we make him pay for his temerity as though he had done injury to the state; if a railroad be opened, down comes the tax collector upon it as though were a public nuisance.... We punish with a tax the man who covers barren fields with ripening grain; we fine him who puts up machinery and him who drains a swamp. To abolish these taxes would be to lift the whole enormous weight of taxation from productive industry.... The state would say to the producer, 'Be as industrious, as thrifty, as enterprising as you choose. You shall have your full reward!

2. Kabbalah:

   We must learn not to disassociate the airy flower from the earthy root, for the flower that is cut off from its root fades, and its seeds are barren, whereas the root, secure in mother earth, can produce flower after flower and bring their fruit to maturity.

3. R. W. Griswold:

   It is a barren kind of criticism which tells you what a thing is not.

4. Anuj Somany:

   If the nature of the person does not match with the character of the place, it seems that s/he is deported by destiny from the natural green beauty land looking like heaven to live in a barren or artificial vegetation region.

5. Nirmala Sitharaman:

   A scheme to enable farmers to set up solar power generation capacity on their barren/fallow lands and to sell it to the grid would be operationalized.

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