1
as in desolate
producing inferior or only a small amount of vegetation
if tobacco fields aren't allowed to lie idle once every few years, they will become barren
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Relevance
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in sterile
not able to produce fruit or offspring
the pear tree appears to be barren
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
3
as in unsuccessful
producing no results
that line of investigation proved barren, so the police tried other avenues
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
4
as in devoid
utterly lacking in something needed, wanted, or expected
their proposal for revitalizing the downtown business district is utterly barren of useful ideas
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
as in desert
land that is uninhabited or not fit for crops
lived out in the barrens where it was impossible to grow anything
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Example Sentences
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
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Recent Examples of barren
Scott Kramer,
Forbes.com,
21 June 2026
The missile flew northeast and then banked and began flying in loops for hours over the barren, frozen landscape.
—
Geoff Brumfiel,
NPR,
18 June 2026
Videos posted on Facebook by the Radical Reform Movement showed a small group of protesters milling around a barrier set up on a two-lane road running through a barren landscape on a bright sunny day.
—
ABC News,
17 June 2026
Among its most significant findings was evidence that solar storms can dramatically accelerate the loss of atmospheric gases, helping explain how Mars evolved from a potentially habitable world into the cold, barren planet seen today.
—
Sharmila Kuthunur,
Space.com,
17 June 2026
See All Example Sentences for barren
Adjective
Then there are the many desert-style courses in Scottsdale that are just plain fun – surrounded by mountains, the deep green fairways are often framed by the barren desert for a visually spectacular look.
—
Scott Kramer,
Forbes.com,
21 June 2026
The missile flew northeast and then banked and began flying in loops for hours over the barren, frozen landscape.
—
Geoff Brumfiel,
NPR,
18 June 2026
Videos posted on Facebook by the Radical Reform Movement showed a small group of protesters milling around a barrier set up on a two-lane road running through a barren landscape on a bright sunny day.
—
ABC News,
17 June 2026
Among its most significant findings was evidence that solar storms can dramatically accelerate the loss of atmospheric gases, helping explain how Mars evolved from a potentially habitable world into the cold, barren planet seen today.
—
Sharmila Kuthunur,
Space.com,
17 June 2026
See All Example Sentences for barren
Recent Examples of Synonyms for barren
Adjective
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Walking around the tiny outpost offers an understanding of just how vast and desolate this arid part of the country can be.
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In the summer it had been packed with people out on the streets, by the fall is was desolate.
Adjective
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These conditions had much higher fatality rates in 1776 because Americans had no antibiotics, few vaccines, no understanding of germ theory, no sterile surgical techniques and limited access to hospitals, experts note.
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Officials will begin to release sterile male mosquitoes in Rosemont next week to reduce the spread of Aedes aegypti, a disease-carrying invasive mosquito, the Sacramento-Yolo Mosquito and Vector Control District announced Wednesday.
Adjective
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More than a decade ago, her association sought the same change at the federal level and was unsuccessful — opposed at the time by Wine Institute.
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The city had taken it over, but several attempts at renovation were unsuccessful, until Alan Leventhal, chief executive of Beacon Capital Partners, happened to see the building and envisioned it as a great hotel.
Adjective
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In a show mostly devoid of explicit messages, the sentiment surprised me.
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Players take on the role of a Ditto capable of mimicking its human trainer, and the Pokémon is thrown into a world devoid of humans.
Noun
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Nowhere has Hollywood left its mark quite like this desert town of 6,000 souls on the banks of the Rio Grande.
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There’s a perfectly worthy retelling of this story that approaches Los Angeles 1821 like Chinatown, one that delves deeply into the traditions of the people indigenous to the land as well as the early attempts to bring fresh water to this desert.
Adjective
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This British drama series follows a woman named Emma over the course of more than six decades of her life, from the 1900s through the 1970s, working her way from impoverished maid to the world’s richest woman.
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Known as a Neglected Tropical Disease because of the lack of funding to fight it, schistosomiasis is a serious challenge for impoverished communities.
Adjective
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Exciting and futile The Humans to Titan Summit was both exciting and futile, said Pascal Lee, chairman of the Mars Institute and a planetary scientist at the SETI Institute.
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All these plans acknowledge the experience gap, namely that training without arranging relevant work experience is often futile.
Adjective
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And since the Lightning have regularly been void of a first-round pick, they’re used to spending a lot of time waiting to make their selections.
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The void being filled is not a very large one, either, Schaefer said, noting that only 2 percent of the flying public chose Spirit.
Cite this Entry
“Barren.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/barren. Accessed 5 Jul. 2026.
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