desolate
barren or laid waste; devastated: a treeless, desolate landscape.
deprived or destitute of inhabitants; deserted; uninhabited.
to lay waste; devastate.
to deprive of inhabitants; depopulate.
to make disconsolate.
to forsake or abandon.
Origin of desolate
1synonym study For desolate
Other words for desolate
Opposites for desolate
Other words from desolate
- des·o·late·ly, adverb
- des·o·late·ness, noun
- des·o·lat·er, des·o·la·tor, noun
- qua·si-des·o·late, adjective
- qua·si-des·o·late·ly, adverb
Words that may be confused with desolate
- desolate , dissolute
Words Nearby desolate
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use desolate in a sentence
Nothing beats hauling your truckload of beer coolers and puffy mattresses and folding chairs and half-cord of split pine into the hinterland and setting up a free campsite on some desolate piece of ground and proceeding to do nothing for a few days.
I have to close my eyes to picture how desolate my neighborhood looked last year, with most everything closed and the near-constant wail of ambulances in the background.
This one sits high atop a desolate moor overlooking Maud’s seaside town and its even bleaker cheap carnival atmosphere.
One Good Thing: The gorgeous horror movie St. Maud finds religious ecstasy in self-destruction | Aja Romano | May 14, 2021 | VoxThe real tragedy of Ethan Winters is that despite the game’s every effort to portray him as a desolate vessel for the player, his dogged, dumb persistence finally allowed a part of himself to pierce through.
The real tragedy of Ethan Winters, Resident Evil’s ‘Village’ idiot | Gene Park | May 14, 2021 | Washington PostThe novel, an enormous influence on modern zombie horror, channels Atomic Age anxiety by depicting formerly bustling neighborhoods as newly desolate.
Politics and the pandemic have changed how we imagine cities | Joanne McNeil | April 28, 2021 | MIT Technology Review
Louisa also devotes much of her time to feeding underprivileged children in the desolate Kurland Village in South Africa.
These Female Contemporaries Weren’t Afraid of Virginia Woolf | Louisa Treger | November 20, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTHere, only the twisting grey concrete under his tires disturbed the desolate wild.
A Belgian Prince, Gorillas, Guerrillas & the Future of the Congo | Nina Strochlic | November 6, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTIn 1979 I published desolate Angel/Jack Kerouac, the Beat Generation, and America.
He was visiting San Francisco and had questions about desolate Angel.
If anything, the ending of Mother Courage is even more desolate than that of Godot—at least Vladimir and Estragon had each other.
When she heard it there came before her imagination the figure of a man standing beside a desolate rock on the seashore.
The Awakening and Selected Short Stories | Kate ChopinThey burnt the chosen city of holiness, and made the streets thereof desolate according to the prediction of Jeremias.
The Bible, Douay-Rheims Version | VariousWhen the funeral was over, and they returned to their desolate home, at the sight of the empty cradle Ramona broke down.
Ramona | Helen Hunt JacksonAnd her gates shall lament and mourn, and she shall sit desolate on the ground.
The Bible, Douay-Rheims Version | VariousAnd he said: Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land shall be left desolate.
The Bible, Douay-Rheims Version | Various
British Dictionary definitions for desolate
uninhabited; deserted
made uninhabitable; laid waste; devastated
without friends, hope, or encouragement; forlorn, wretched, or abandoned
gloomy or dismal; depressing
to deprive of inhabitants; depopulate
to make barren or lay waste; devastate
to make wretched or forlorn
to forsake or abandon
Origin of desolate
1Derived forms of desolate
- desolater or desolator, noun
- desolately, adverb
- desolateness, noun
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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