n.

1. an uninhabited wilderness that is worthless for cultivation;
   waste, wasteland
   
   • the barrens of central Africa
   • the trackless wastes of the desert

adj.

1. providing no shelter or sustenance;
   bare, bleak, desolate, stark
   
   • bare rocky hills
   • barren lands
   • the bleak treeless regions of the high Andes
   • the desolate surface of the moon
   • a stark landscape
2. completely wanting or lacking;
   destitute, devoid, innocent
   
   • writing barren of insight
   • young recruits destitute of experience
   • a novel devoid of wit and inventiveness
   • a life empty of happiness
   • innocent of literary merit
   • void of understanding
3. not bearing offspring
   
   • a barren woman
   • learned early in his marriage that he was sterile
4. incapable of sustaining life
   
   • the dead and barren Moon