▪ I. barren, a. and n.
(ˈbærən)
Forms: 3 barain, -aigne, 4 barein, -en, 4–5 bareine, -eyn(e, 5 -ane, 4–6 ayn(e, barreyne, -ayne, (5 berhayn), 6 baraine, (barune, baryn), barreine, -ayn, (Sc. barrane, -and, -ant), 6–7 barraine, 6– barren. Compared barrener, -est.
[a. OF. *barain, brahain, brehaing, in fem. baraine, baraigne, barhaine, barahaine, braaigne, brahaigne, brehaigne, of uncertain origin and original form: assuming this to be barain, Diez suggests derivation from bar ‘man, male’ (L. type *bār-āneus), as if ‘male-like, not producing offspring, sterile,’ which suits the sense well; but there seems to be good reason for taking brahain as the original type, whence bréhain, and barhain, barain; the latter was the Anglo-Norman form. (The Breton bréchagn is certainly from Fr.: Thurneysen.)]
A. adj. I. Literal senses. Oppos. to fertile.
1. Of a woman: Bearing no children; without issue, childless.
| c 1200 Trin. Coll. Hom. 133 Þe wimman was barrage [? barraigne], swo þat heo ne mihte for unkinde hauen no child. c 1230 Ancr. R. 158 Al were he, þuruh miracle, of barain iboren. a 1300 Cursor M. 16655 Þe baraigne blisced sal man call. c 1340 Ibid. (Fairf.) 2600 Sare..sayde til abraham.. I am baren [Cotton geld]. Ibid. (Trin.) 12257 Þe bareyn [Cotton vnfruitand] shal hir fruyt fynde. 1483 Caxton G. de la Tour F. vij b, Fenenna scorned..Anna and called her berhayn. 1536 Bellendene Cron. Scot. Prol., The barrant wyfe Appeiris yung. 1590 Shakes. Mids. N. i. i. 72 In shady Cloister mew'd, To liue a barren sister all your life. 1751 Jortin Serm. (1771) I. ii. 22 His wife Sarah being barren. |
2. a. Of animals: Not bearing, not pregnant at the usual season.
| c 1340 Gaw. & Gr. Knt. 1320 To hunt..at hyndez barayne. c 1400 Ywaine & Gaw. 2027 Sone he met a barayn da. 1653 Walton Angler 84 So there be some barren Trouts, that are good in Winter. 1725 Pope Odyss. x. 622 A barren cow, the stateliest of the isle. 1882 Somerset Co. Gaz. 18 Mar. (Advt.), Cow and calf, barreners, barren heifers. |
b. Of male animals: Sterile, castrated.
| 1617 Minsheu Ductor 872 A boare hogge made a barren hogge..a libd or gelded hogge, porcus castratus. |
3. Of trees or plants: Without fruit or seed. (Sometimes specifically, as in Barren Strawberry, a strawberry-like plant bearing only a dry seed.)
| c 1386 Chaucer Knt.'s T. 1119 Knotty knarry bareyn trees olde. 1580 Hollyband Treas. Fr. Tong, Aveneron, barren oates. 1597 Gerard Herbal cxxviii §3. 397 Barren Welde hath a thicke wooddie roote. 1776 Adam Smith W.N. I. i. xi. 256 Rise in the real price of barren timber, in consequence of the improvement of land. 1861 Miss Pratt Flower Pl. I. 9 Flowers..which have stamens only, are said to be barren. 1878 B. Taylor Deukalion i. ii. 23 The barren bough hung apples to the sun. |
4. a. Of land: Producing little or no vegetation; not fertile, sterile, unproductive, bare. So of mines, etc.
| 1377 Langl. P. Pl. B. xviii. 106 Ne no lond tylye But al bareyne be. c 1420 Pallad. on Husb. i. 169 In bareine lande to sette or foster vynes. 1513 Douglas æneis vii. Prol. 41 Bewtie wes lost, and barrand schew the landis. 1551 Turner Herbal (1568) F ij a, Gotes bearde in barune places hath but a short stalke. 1614 Raleigh Hist. World ii. 349 Land..exceeding stony and barraine. 1776 Adam Smith W.N. I. i. xi. 249 The most fertile mine then known may be more barren than any that was wrought before the discovery of America. 1848 Mill Pol. Econ. ii. ii. §5 One of the barrennest soils in the world. |
b. Barren Grounds, the district lying between Hudson Bay and Mackenzie River in Canada, used attrib. in Barren-Ground bear (see quots.); Barren-Ground caribou, Barren-Ground reindeer, any of the several varieties of reindeer found in the Barren Grounds and Greenland, esp. Rangifer arcticus and R. grœnlandicus.
| 1691 Kelsey in Doughty & Martin Papers 23 Aug. (1929) 13 Now y⊇ manner of their hunting these Beast on y⊇ Barren ground is..they surround them. 1781 Cumberland House Jrnls. (1952) 226 The Indians lying Dead about the Barren Ground like rotten sheep. 1825 J. Richardson in Parry's Jrnl. 2nd Voy. App. 329 The cetrariæ, corniculariæ, and cenomyces, which clothe the barren-grounds like a carpet. Footnote, The Barren Grounds (‘Hi lichene obsiti campi quos Terram Damnatam diceret peregrinus’, Flor. Lapp., p. 374). 1829 ― Fauna Bor.-Amer. I. 23, I have given this one the ad interim name of Barren-ground Bear, until its difference from, or identity with, the Ursus arctos of Linnæus be fully established. Ibid. 241 Cervus tarandus var. α, arctica. Barren Ground Caribou. 1836 R. King Narr. Journey Arctic Ocean I. vi. 149 The barren-ground rein-deer, or caribou..is of small size compared to the other deer. 1877 Encycl. Brit. VII. 25/1 The Barren Ground Caribou, and the Woodland Caribou. 1897 Lydekker in Proc. Zool. Soc. 425 Ursus arctus Richardsoni—Barren-Ground Bear... This Bear..differs from the Grizzly in the shorter skull. |
5. Void of vital germs.
| 1871 Tyndall Fragm. Sc. II. xiii. 333 An infusion found to be barren by six months' exposure to moteless air. |
II. Figurative senses.
6. Bare of intellectual wealth, destitute of attraction or interest, poor, meagre, jejune, arid, dry.
| 1387 Trevisa Higden Rolls Ser. I. 11, I..dradde, after so noble spekers..to putte forþ my bareyn speche. 1430 Lydg. Chron. Troy i. v, Thy wyt was to barrayne. 1549 Olde Erasm. Par. Eph. Prol. E ij, The kynges maiesties playne Englyshe subiectes vnderstande none other but theyr owne natiue barayne tongue. 1598 Barret Theor. Warres Pref. 5 Discourses..not so barraine, but you may reape some good fruit from them. 1782 V. Knox Ess. (1819) I. xlvii. 260 The barrenest periods of English literature. 1846 Grote Greece i. iv. (1862) I. 79 A list of barren names fills up the interval. |
7. Unproductive of results; fruitless, unprofitable.
| 1549 Coverdale Erasm. Par. 1 Cor. xv. 10, I suffered not hys grace in me to be either idle or baraine. 1665 Boyle Occas. Refl. (1675) Pref. 12 Who may chance to have either Barrenner Fancy's, or more unpractis'd Pens, than even I had. 1681 Dryden Abs. & Achit. 297 Barren Praise..that Gaudy Flow'r, Fair only to the sight. 1753 Chambers Cycl. Supp. s.v., Barren money is used, in the civil law, for that which is not put out to interest. 1779 J. Moore View Soc. Fr. (1789) I. viii. 55 They could shed a few barren tears at a tragedy. 1877 Mozley Univ. Serm. i. 12 A barren and unrepaid attachment, a wasted affection. |
8. Of persons: Mentally unproductive; unresponsive, dull, yielding no mental fruit.
| 1590 Shakes. Mids. N. iii. ii. 13 The shallowest thick-skin of that barren sort. 1602 ― Ham. iii. ii. 46 Will themselues laugh, to set on some quantitie of barren Spectators to laugh too. 1779 Johnson L.P., Phillips Wks. II. 291 He was in company silent and barren. 1866 Carlyle Remin. (1881) I. 324 The stupidest and barrenest of living mortals. |
9. Const. in all prec. senses with of.
| c 1375 Wyclif Serm. Sel. Wks. 1869 II. 278 Þou..þat art barayne of goostly children. 1413 Lydg. Pylgr. Sowle iv. xx, Of ioye am I barayne. 1547 Boorde Introd. Knowl. 198 These countreys be baryn of wine and corne. 1633 Bp. Hall Hard Texts 374 Have I been barren of my favours to you? 1710 Steele Tatler No. 196 ¶5 Hearts barren of Kindness. 1856 Froude Hist. Eng. (1858) I. ii. 154 The league with France..had been barren of results. |
III. Comb. in parasynthetic deriv., as barren-brained, barren-spirited, barren-witted, barren-wombed; and complemental, as barren-beaten.
| 1597 Drayton Mortimer. 117 Renewe this wearie barren-wombed earth. 1601 Shakes. Jul. C. iv. i. 36 A barren spirited Fellow. 1798 Southey Lett. (1856) I. 58 A barren-brained blockhead. 1859 Tennyson Elaine 161 He left the barren-beaten thoroughfare. 1870 Emerson Soc. & Solit. ix. 187 What a barren-witted pate is mine! |
B. n. [the adj. used absol.]
† 1. A barren woman or animal. Obs.
| [Cf. 1230 and 1340 in A 1.] c 1420 Anturs Arth. iv, Vndur boes thay byde..To beker at the barrens. |
† 2. Specific term for a drove of mules. Obs.
| 1486 Bk. St. Albans F vj a, A Baren of Mulis. |
3. A tract of barren land; spec. applied in N. America to: a. elevated plains on which grow small trees and shrubs, but no timber, classed as oak-barrens, pine-barrens, etc., according to the trees growing on them; also attrib. as barrens oak (see quot. 1832); b. in Kentucky, to certain really fertile tracts in the carboniferous limestone formation; c. in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick (see quot. 1879).
| 1784 T. Jefferson in Sparks Corr. Amer. Rev. (1853) IV. 63 A mountainous barren which can never be inhabited. 1832 D. J. Browne Sylva Amer. 269 In New Jersey and Pennsylvania it [sc. the Black Jack Oak] is called Barrens Oak. 1850 Lyell 2nd Visit U.S. II. 12, I had sometimes to put up with rough quarters in the pine-barrens. 1859 Kingsley Life II. 100 (D.) To have the sewage conveyed..to fertilize the barrens of Surrey and Berkshire. 1877 J. Allen Amer. Bison 460 The so-called Barrens of Kentucky, the southward extension of the Wabash prairies. 1879 Ld. Dunraven in 19th Cent. July 54 A barren..means in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick an open marshy space in the forest, sometimes so soft as to be almost impassable, at other times composed of good solid hard peat. |
▪ II. † ˈbarren, v. Obs.
Also 6 barrain -ayn.
[f. prec. adj.]
To make barren, unfruitful, or sterile; to exhaust or impoverish (land); = barrenize.
| 1581 A. Anderson Serm. Paules Crosse 69 So to barren the soyle rounde aboute them. 1593 Nashe Christ's T. (1613) 160 Barrayning their wombes by drugges. 1649 W. Blithe Eng. Improv. Impr. ii. (1653) 13 And this I charge as a great prejudice, and may be as a barrenning the land. 1725 Bradley Fam. Dict. s.v. Stock Gilly, They may be set again in the same Earth, after..mixing Sand therewith to Barren it. |