barren

What it means

1. not comparableNot bearing children, childless; hence also 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?

   2 more examples

   Forget not, in your speed, Antonius, To touch Calpurnia; for our elders say, The barren, touched in this holy chase, Shake off their sterile curse.

   1599 (first performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Iulius Cæsar”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)

   The druids […] believed that mistletoe could make barren animals fecund, and that it was an antidote to all poisons.

   2014 December 23, Olivia Judson, “The hemiparasite season [print version: Under the hemiparasite, International New York Times, 24–25 December 2014, p. 7]”, in The New York Times

2. not comparableNot bearing seed or fruit.
3. Of poor fertility, infertile; not producing vegetation; desert, waste.

   barren mountain tracts

   1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter I, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC

   2 more examples

   We have descended Tian Shan and entered the Taklamakan Desert, a barren landscape painted in ecru—no shrubs, no grass, only waves upon waves of naked ridges the color of buff, the highest few spotted with white specks of snow.

   2009, Y.J. Zhu, “Taklamakan Desert Moon Ride”, in Lucy McCauley, editor, The Best Women's Travel Writing 2009: True Stories from Around the World (Travelers' Tales), →ISBN, →ISSN, →OCLC, →OL, page 154

   Terraforming even a barren planet often involves significant financial and ethical hurdles.

   2017, BioWare, Mass Effect: Andromeda (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Technology: Terraforming Codex entry

In a sentence

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?

Where it comes from

1. Proto-Germanic*bazaz“bare”
2. Frankish*baʀ“bare; barren”
3. Germanic
4. Anglo-Normanbaraigne
5. Middle Englishbareyne
6. Englishbarren

From Middle English bareyne, from Anglo-Norman baraigne, baraing (“sterile; barren”), of obscure origin; probably from a Germanic language, perhaps Frankish *baʀ (“bare; barren”), from Proto-Germanic *bazaz (“bare”). If so, a cognate of English bare.