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.
  • Called me barren and used up and all that.
    — Jamil Jan Kochai, New Yorker, 1 June 2026
  • Men knelt for evening prayer on straw mats in a barren field.
    — Sima Diab, Washington Post, 10 Sep. 2023
  • It cannot be maintained in such barren ground.
    — David B McGarry, Oc Register, 9 Apr. 2026
  • These features were formed when the area was a barren desert.
    — Richard Mason, Arkansas Online, 23 May 2021
  • One of vultures in a barren tree.
    — Madison E. Goldberg, PEOPLE, 15 Sep. 2025
  • Weeds and brush had broken up the most barren parts of the plot.
    — Alexander Sammon, The New Republic, 16 Feb. 2022
  • The ground, brown and barren after the storm, had turned green again.
    — Philly.com, 5 Nov. 2017
  • The kindness of strangers who bring trees and gifts to light up barren rooms.
    — Rex Huppke, chicagotribune.com, 24 Dec. 2020
  • Fire burned so hot that soil was still barren in places more than a year later.
    — Brian Melley, Fortune, 26 Oct. 2023
  • My wife stood in a yard now barren of trees and wondered where all her birds had gone.
    — Southern Living, 15 Mar. 2012
  • My wife stood in a yard now barren of trees and wondered where all her birds had gone.
    — Southern Living, 1 May 2017
  • 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
  • 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
  • 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
  • The trees were dropped in six locations where the lake floor was barren.
    — Lindsey Botts, The Arizona Republic, 15 Jan. 2022
  • Just then, Oyama-san stops the car and points up to a barren tree.
    — Adam H. Graham, Condé Nast Traveler, 11 Oct. 2018
  • Those shelves were picked clean, as barren as an Australian coral reef.
    — John Kelly, Washington Post, 8 Mar. 2020
  • The otters and trout vanished from the creek; deer fled the barren fields.
    — Sarah Kaplan, chicagotribune.com, 11 Sep. 2019
  • The farmer stands in front of his barren field, dotted with stunted cumin plants.
    — Popular Science, 7 June 2020
  • In just two hours, the once-green hillside was reduced to barren trees and ash.
    — Hayley Smith, Los Angeles Times, 27 July 2021
  • Space is depthless and barren here, life scarce, and meals few and far between.
    — Sabrina Imbler, The Atlantic, 5 Dec. 2022
  • My man had already served twenty-six barren years.
    — Literary Hub, 27 Mar. 2026
  • The last climb of the day up the barren walls of the Izoard is a back-breaker.
    — Bob Ford, Philly.com, 19 July 2017
  • Just don’t conquer the icy and barren island.
    — Jordan Blum, Fortune, 17 Jan. 2026
  • In a barren free-agent class, though, that’s much easier said than done.
    — Shayna Goldman, New York Times, 2 June 2026
  • The Clifton Market had a lot of barren shelves.
    — Scott Wartman, Cincinnati Enquirer, 12 Feb. 2026
  • Children led cows to barren pastures, and the sky-high birch trees were spindly, like ghosts.
    — Jia Tolentino, Bon Appetit, 24 Jan. 2017
  • But Market Street was not barren for long.
    — Culture Critic, San Francisco Chronicle, 10 Jan. 2026

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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