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 paraphrases:

1. List of paraphrases for "barren":

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

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How to use barren in a sentence?

1. Calvin Coolidge:

   No other theory is adequate to explain or comprehend the Declaration of Independence. It is the product of the spiritual insight of the people. We live in an age of science and of abounding accumulation of material things. These did not create our Declaration. Our Declaration created them. The things of the spirit come first. Unless we cling to that, all our material prosperity, overwhelming though it may appear, will turn to a barren sceptre in our grasp. If we are to maintain the great heritage which has been bequeathed to us, we must be like-minded as the fathers who created it. We must not sink into a pagan materialism. We must cultivate the reverence which they had for the things that are holy. We must follow the spiritual and moral leadership which they showed. We must keep replenished, that they may glow with a more compelling flame, the altar fires before which they worshiped.

2. George Eliot:

   Comprehensive talkers are apt to be tiresome when we are not athirst for information; but, to be quite fair, we must admit that superior reticence is a good deal due to lack of matter. Speech is often barren, but silence also does not necessarily brood over a full nest. Your still fowl, blinking at you without remark, may all the while be sitting on one addled nest-egg; and, when it takes to cackling, will have nothing to announce but that addled delusion.

3. Joseph J. Lamb:

   The road to success leads through the valley of humility, and the path is up the ladder of patience and across the wide barren plains of perseverance. As yet, no short cut has ever been discovered.

4. R. W. Griswold:

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

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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