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.

Adjective

(en adjective)

not yielding profit

* 1600 , Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing , [http://books.google.com/books?id=2Bs-AQAAIAAJ&pg=PA85&lpg=PA85&dq=profitless+shakespeare+much+ado+about+nothing&source=bl&ots=v6uUj5WO9y&sig=S9PwJ9Pr2ZPnHLa19vMJ3-cWXkg&hl=en&sa=X&ei=TGl1UO_rCuGSyQHY5ICADg&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=profitless%20shakespeare%20much%20ado%20about%20nothing&f=false]:

I pray thee, cease thy counsel,

Which falls into mine ears as profitless

As water in a sieve...