Obs.; also 6 barrain -ayn. [f. prec. adj.] To make barren, unfruitful or sterile; to exhaust or impoverish (land); = BARRENIZE.
1581. A. Andreson, Serm. Paules Crosse, 69. So to barren the soyle rounde aboute them.
1593. Nashe, Christ’s T. (1613), 160. Barrayning their wombes by drugges.
1649. Blith, Eng. Improv. Impr., ii. (1653), 13. And this I charge as a great prejudice, and may be as a barrenning the land.
1725. Bradley, Fam. Dict., s.v. Stock Gilly, They may be set again in the same Earth, after … mixing Sand therewith to Barren it.
