How to Use barren in a Sentence

barren

adjective
  • The book was good, but I found the barren lives of the characters depressing.
  • Few creatures can thrive on these barren mountaintops.
  • The secret to life in this barren place are the sand rivers.
    Stanley Stewart, Condé Nast Traveler, 21 Dec. 2018
  • Weeds and brush had broken up the most barren parts of the plot.
    Alexander Sammon, The New Republic, 16 Feb. 2022
  • Much of the land there is bare, though not quite barren.
    oregonlive, 30 Aug. 2020
  • A month ago, the world was all brown grass and bare trees and barren ground.
    BostonGlobe.com, 29 Apr. 2021
  • The last climb of the day up the barren walls of the Izoard is a back-breaker.
    Bob Ford, Philly.com, 19 July 2017
  • The otters and trout vanished from the creek; deer fled the barren fields.
    Sarah Kaplan, chicagotribune.com, 11 Sep. 2019
  • Men knelt for evening prayer on straw mats in a barren field.
    Sima Diab, Washington Post, 10 Sep. 2023
  • The kindness of strangers who bring trees and gifts to light up barren rooms.
    Rex Huppke, chicagotribune.com, 24 Dec. 2020
  • The ground, brown and barren after the storm, had turned green again.
    Philly.com, 5 Nov. 2017
  • These features were formed when the area was a barren desert.
    Richard Mason, Arkansas Online, 23 May 2021
  • The Gulch was a cut-through, just a street that was barren.
    Chuck Dauphin, Billboard, 14 June 2018
  • The trees were dropped in six locations where the lake floor was barren.
    Lindsey Botts, The Arizona Republic, 15 Jan. 2022
  • The black stumps of willow bushes jutted out of the barren ground.
    The New Yorker, 8 Nov. 2021
  • One year ago, these streets were a barren landscape of fear.
    Los Angeles Times, 14 Feb. 2021
  • My wife stood in a yard now barren of trees and wondered where all her birds had gone.
    Southern Living, 1 May 2017
  • Just then, Oyama-san stops the car and points up to a barren tree.
    Adam H. Graham, Condé Nast Traveler, 11 Oct. 2018
  • The accord brought to a close two decades of pointless conflict over a scrap of barren land.
    The Economist, 19 Oct. 2019
  • My wife stood in a yard now barren of trees and wondered where all her birds had gone.
    Southern Living, 15 Mar. 2012
  • But that’s not to say the milk section at any of these stores was barren, by any means.
    Andy Meek, BGR, 25 Jan. 2022
  • If there is a barren tree in your front yard, cut it down and replace it with grass.
    Bill Jordan, Dallas News, 28 Mar. 2021
  • If there is a barren tree in your front yard, cut it down and replace it with grass.
    Bobbie Johnson, President, star-telegram.com, 30 Apr. 2017
  • The moon is a dry and barren place, utterly devoid of life.
    Avery Thompson, Popular Mechanics, 24 July 2018
  • In just two hours, the once-green hillside was reduced to barren trees and ash.
    Hayley Smith, Los Angeles Times, 27 July 2021
  • The farmer stands in front of his barren field, dotted with stunted cumin plants.
    Popular Science, 7 June 2020
  • Fire burned so hot that soil was still barren in places more than a year later.
    Brian Melley, Fortune, 26 Oct. 2023
  • Three hangars and the first layers of a runway command a sandy, barren field.
    Washington Post, 23 Apr. 2018
  • The power and volume rocker sit on the top-right side, while the left is barren.
    Jacob Krol, CNN Underscored, 30 July 2020
  • In the midst of barren rock spires and deep canyon walls, greenery sprouts around serene springs and wetlands.
    AZCentral.com, 18 Aug. 2021

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'barren.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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