desolate
29
6.8
- adjective
- /ˈdɛsəlɪt/
- The abandoned house stood in a desolate landscape, surrounded by nothing but barren fields.
- a desolate place
- a desolate landscape
- remote and desolate
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Watch on YouTubeBut it's just like this desolate, gross, misty place.
- But it's just like this desolate, gross, misty place.
- Parking lot was desolate and a little creepy.
- A huge wreck of stones on a lone and desolate spot.
- And, you know, most people, not all people, but most people from, you know, desolate areas, they think every American is a millionaire.
- Others were were on the cold wind swept High Plains of Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Colorado and two of the most desolate places in California.
- She would go out to like desolate beaches or wide wastelands with a bunch of nude models and shoot them in apocalyptic scenarios.
Examples
-
Most of Rajasthan, a large state in western India, is a desolate and devastated landscape.
Academic text (2007) -
I finally tracked down the original in a desolate back corner of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Academic text (2004) -
I kept following him until he reached a desolate area.
-
This must be the most desolate place on the earth.
-
People always say, "What a terrible place for them to live, so desolate and so out of reach."
-
Parking lot was desolate and a little creepy.
-
Located in a remote and desolate area, the institution was different from what they had pictured.
Academic text (2011) -
A desolate, dry planet with vast deserts.
-
The camera pans the empty, desolate landscape of oil pumps, dirt roads, and a solitary billboard.
Fiction book (1995) -
Lightning splits the black-and-white sky, revealing a single shattered oak in a desolate landscape.
Fiction book (1998)
Synonyms
301
2.2
Not covered or protected, showing the plain surface
292
2.8
Left empty and not used, often by people who lived there
116
3.0
A place that people no longer live in or use
44
3.8
A gloomy, boring time that makes you feel sad or tired
44
4.6
Land where plants and animals cannot grow
34
1.6
A place with no people or animals present
23
4.0
A place with no people living there
14
4.8
Very plain and empty with no decoration
13
7.5
A place or building that is abandoned and in very bad condition from lack of use
8
4.4
Too harsh for plants or animals to survive there
8
4.9
An open empty place with little shelter or plants
2
6.3
Not interesting and without energy or life
1
7.4
A place that has lost most of its people, often after war or disease
1
7.6
A place with no people in it
1
5.8
A dark, gloomy place that makes people feel afraid or uncomfortable
Antonyms
How Empty
Surface Forms
Morphology
desolate = de + solate
The sense 'empty, bleak (of a place)' is a relatively direct physical meaning of the historical formation, but because 'solate' is not a productive modern base the decomposition is only partly helpful to learners.
Etymology
Desolate comes from Latin de- ('completely') and solus ('alone'), so it means 'completely alone'. That's why a desolate place is empty, bleak and without shelter or life.