c. 1200, "incapable of producing its kind" (of female animals, plants), from Old French baraigne, baraing "sterile, barren" (12c.), perhaps originally brahain, a word of obscure derivation, possibly from a Germanic language. Its use in reference to males is rare. Of land, "producing little or no vegetation," by late 14c.

As a noun from mid-13c., "a barren woman;" later "tract of more or less unproductive land."

BARRENS. Elevated lands, or plains upon which grow small trees, but never timber. [Bartlett, "Dictionary of Americanisms," 1848]

"level, sandy tract covered sparsely with pine trees," 1731, American-English, from pine (n.) + barren (n.).

late 14c., "incapacity for child-bearing" (of women); "unproductivity, unfruitfulness" (of land); earlier in a figurative sense ("spiritual emptiness," mid-14c.); from barren + -ness.

mid-14c., "unprofitable," from fruit + -less. Meaning "barren, sterile" is from 1510s. Related: Fruitlessly; fruitlessness.

"to castrate," c. 1300, from Old Norse gelda "to castrate," said in Watkins to be from Proto-Germanic *galdjan "to castrate," from PIE *ghel- (3) "to cut." Related to other words which, if the derivation is correct, indicate a general sense of "barren." Compare Old Norse geld-fe "barren sheep" and geldr (adj.) "barren, yielding no milk, dry," which yielded Middle English geld "barren" (of women and female animals); also Old High German galt "barren," said of a cow. Related: Gelded; gelding.

"barren table-land in South Africa," 1789, said to be from a Khoisan (Hottentot) word meaning "hard," or perhaps "desert."

late 14c., "barren," from un- (1) "not" + fruitful. Originally literal; figurative sense is attested from c. 1400. Related: Unfruitfully; unfruitfulness.

mid-15c., "barren," from Old French stérile "not producing fruit" and directly from Latin sterilis "barren, unproductive, unfruitful; unrequited; unprofitable," from PIE *ster- "lacking, sterile," source also of Sanskrit starih "a barren cow," Greek steira "sterile, infertile" (of a cow, goat, woman), Armenian sterj "infertile," perhaps ultimately from root *ster- (1) "stiff." Originally in English with reference to soil; of persons (chiefly females), from 1530s. The sense of "sterilized, free from living germs" is first recorded 1877.

"not productive, barren, not making some specified effect or result," by 1690s, from un- (1) "not" + productive (adj.). Related: Unproductively; unproductiveness.

"animal which does not produce in season," 1729, an East Anglian dialect word, perhaps from or related to Middle Dutch gast "barren soil."