Barren vs Barken - What's the difference?

As nouns the difference between barren and barken

is that barren is bar while barken is .

barren

English

Adjective

(en-adj)

(label) 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 ?

Of poor fertility, infertile; not producing vegetation.

* (1800–1859)

barren mountain tracts

* '>citation

Bleak.

*{{quote-book, year=1922, author=(Michael Arlen), title= “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days, chapter=Ep./4/2

, passage=As they turned into Hertford Street they startled a robin from the poet's head on a barren fountain, and he fled away with a cameo note.}}

Unproductive; fruitless; unprofitable; empty.

* (1796-1859)

brilliant but barren reveries

* (Jonathan Swift) (1667–1745)

Some schemes will appear barren of hints and matter.

* {{quote-news, year=2011, date=September 2, author=Phil McNulty, work=BBC

, title= Bulgaria 0-3 England , passage=Rooney had been suffered a barren spell for England with only one goal in 15 games but he was in no mood to ignore the gifts on offer in front of an increasingly subdued Bulgarian support.}}

Mentally dull; stupid.

* (William Shakespeare), (Hamlet), III.ii. ca. 1602

Set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too.

Synonyms

* sterile

Antonyms

* fertile * fruitful

Noun

(en noun)

An area of low fertility and habitation, a desolate place.

The pine barrens are a site lonely enough to suit any hermit.

barken

English

Adjective

(-)

(poetic) Made of bark.

(Whittier)

Verb

(en verb)

To become hard or form a crust, like bark.

*{{quote-book, year=1828, author=David Macbeth Moir, title=The Life of Mansie Wauch, chapter=, edition= citation

, passage=The poor patient knew at once his master's tongue, and lifting up one of his eyes, the other being stiff and barkened down said in a melancholy voice, "Ah, master, do you think I'll get better?" }}

*1908 , Sir Walter Scott, Guy Mannering, or, The astrologer :

"The best way's to let the blood barken upon the cut — that saves plasters, hinney."

To tan or dye with bark.

*{{quote-book, year=1818, author=Sir Walter Scott, title=The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Vol. 1., Illustrated, chapter=, edition= citation

, passage="And it wad far better become ye, Mr. Saddletree," continued his helpmate, "since ye say ye hae skeel o' the law, to try if ye can do onything for Effie Deans, puir thing, that's lying up in the tolbooth yonder, cauld, and hungry, and comfortless--A servant lass of ours, Mr. Butler, and as innocent a lass, to my thinking, and as usefu' in the shop--When Mr. Saddletree gangs out,--and ye're aware he's seldom at hame when there's ony o' the plea-houses open,--poor Effie used to help me to tumble the bundles o' barkened leather up and down, and range out the gudes, and suit a' body's humours--And troth, she could aye please the customers wi' her answers, for she was aye civil, and a bonnier lass wasna in Auld Reekie. }} (Webster 1913) ----