barren.

1. Unable to support much vegetation or produce a worthwhile crop.

2. Producing no useful result, insight, or achievement.

3. Unable to produce offspring.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• barren soil
• barren hillside

On the page

Only scattered scrub survived on the barren hillside.

Usage notes

Primary category: setting / environment. Forms: Comparative more barren; superlative most barren when comparison is meaningful. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: setting, description. Commonness: moderately common.