desolate
Americanadjective
-
barren or laid waste; devastated.
a treeless, desolate landscape.
- Synonyms:
- bleak
-
deprived or destitute of inhabitants; deserted; uninhabited.
- Synonyms:
- remote
-
a desolate life.
-
having the feeling of being abandoned by friends or by hope; forlorn.
-
desolate prospects.
verb (used with object)
adjective
-
uninhabited; deserted
-
made uninhabitable; laid waste; devastated
-
without friends, hope, or encouragement; forlorn, wretched, or abandoned
-
gloomy or dismal; depressing
verb
-
to deprive of inhabitants; depopulate
-
to make barren or lay waste; devastate
-
to make wretched or forlorn
-
to forsake or abandon
Synonym Usage
Desolate, disconsolate, forlorn suggest one who is in a sad and wretched condition. The desolate person is deprived of human consolation, relationships, or presence: desolate and despairing. The disconsolate person is aware of the efforts of others to console and comfort, but is unable to be relieved or cheered by them: She remained disconsolate even in the midst of friends. The forlorn person is lost, deserted, or forsaken by friends: wretched and forlorn in a strange city.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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desolatenessnoun
-
desolaternoun
-
desolatornoun
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quasi-desolateadjective
-
desolatelyadverb
-
quasi-desolatelyadverb
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
desolatesimple
-
desolatessimple
-
have desolatedperfect
-
has desolatedperfect
-
am desolatingprogressive
-
are desolatingprogressive
-
is desolatingprogressive
-
have been desolatingperfect progressive
-
has been desolatingperfect progressive
Past
-
desolatedsimple
-
had desolatedperfect
-
was desolatingprogressive
-
were desolatingprogressive
-
had been desolatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of desolate
First recorded in 1325–75; Middle English, from Latin dēsōlātus “forsaken,” past participle of dēsōlāre, from dē- de- + sōlāre “to make lonely” (derivative of sōlus sole 1 )
Explanation
If you feel alone, left out, and devastated, you feel desolate. A deserted, empty, depressing place can be desolate too. If you know the word deserted, you have a clue to the meaning of desolate, a grim word that can describe feelings and places. When a person feels desolate, he feels deserted, lonely, hopeless, and sad. When a location is desolate, there's almost nothing there. Think of a rundown cabin in the middle of nowhere, with no running water and no stores or other people anywhere. That's a desolate setting. Being in a desolate place usually makes people feel desolate.
Vocabulary lists containing desolate
Figurative Language in King's "I Have a Dream" Speech (1963)
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Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" Speech (1963)
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Zilch, Zip, Nada: Words For Nothing
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
As we climbed the winding road to Bédar, we emerged into a charred and desolate landscape.
From BBC ● Jul. 13, 2026
The delicate pitter-patter of a drum’s cymbal is the only sound to break through the thick brick wall of the obscure performance venue, Sun Space, and reach the wide, desolate Sunland Boulevard.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 18, 2026
West Ham manager Nuno Espirito Santo was desolate, insisting everyone in the game is now confused as to what constituted a foul in the penalty area at set-pieces.
From BBC ● May 10, 2026
“Usually, people go to a destination,” said Andriy Bratash, who captained the ship that carried Brown to the southern Pacific’s desolate center.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 23, 2026
“When he’s awake. Now he’s ‘wandering in the desert, a desolate, wind-swept wilderness.’”
From "Will’s Race for Home" by Jewell Parker Rhodes
He visits Barbara's soup kitchen shelter and proves with an open checkbook that he can bribe the poor and buy the Army, which desolates Barbara.
From Time Magazine Archive
The sudden death of Leontes' young son desolates him.
From Time Magazine Archive
But your misrepresentation which pained me most, in fact desolates me to the extent that I am unfit for work, is your statement that I weigh 200 Ib.
From Time Magazine Archive
Oh very fair! smiling, cultivated, and green, like England, but far happier; for slavery which disgraces the New World, and poverty which desolates the Old, are nowhere to be seen.
From The Englishwoman in America by Bird, Isabella L. (Isabella Lucy)
The low wind through your garden prates Of one this twilight desolates.
From The Dreamers And Other Poems by Garrison, Theodosia
Hospital director Dr Muhammad Abu Salima has called on the WHO and the UN to help the medical teams and patients "leave this desolated place".
From BBC ● Nov. 19, 2023
At the same time, Wallerstein could offer a mild reassurance: "It would certainly not be great, but it is not necessarily the desolated moonscape that people sometimes imagine it would be."
From Salon ● Oct. 7, 2022
A man in his late 40s and his son, about 10, both unnamed, are walking a desolated road.
From New York Times ● Oct. 21, 2021
Even in the depths of the pandemic — even when the world locked down, leaving billions isolated and desolated — there were those who danced.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 16, 2021
Still—I was desolated when he climbed away and headed back west.
From "Code Name Verity" by Elizabeth Wein
When D’Amore isn’t speaking — and for most of those three minutes and 40 seconds, she is silent — her body language is desolating.
From Salon ● Sep. 1, 2019
“The simple way...to put an end to the savage and desolating war now waged by the slaveholders, is to strike down slavery itself, the primal cause of that war.”
From Textbooks ● Jan. 18, 2018
It sounds as if your mother is relatively young herself, so this is a diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer’s which is even more desolating.
From Slate ● Jul. 20, 2015
It goes beyond documentary, drawing on a visionary stage vocabulary and creating individual stories that are both desolating and stirring.
From The Guardian ● Jan. 27, 2013
From a distant radio I heard the desolating music of a dance orchestra.
From "Black Like Me" by John Howard Griffin
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
