Library / English Dictionary

DESOLATE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (adjective) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Crushed by grief

Example:

a low desolate wail

Classified under:

Adjectives

Similar:

disconsolate; inconsolable; unconsolable (sad beyond comforting; incapable of being consoled)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Providing no shelter or sustenance

Example:

a stark landscape

Synonyms:

bare; barren; bleak; desolate; stark

Classified under:

Adjectives

Similar:

inhospitable (unfavorable to life or growth)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Cause extensive destruction or ruin utterly

Example:

The enemy lay waste to the countryside after the invasion

Synonyms:

desolate; devastate; lay waste to; ravage; scourge; waste

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "desolate" is one way to...):

destroy; ruin (destroy completely; damage irreparably)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "desolate"):

ruin (reduce to ruins)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Derivation:

desolation (an event that results in total destruction)

desolation (a bleak and desolate atmosphere)

desolation (the state of being decayed or destroyed)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Reduce in population

Example:

The epidemic depopulated the countryside

Synonyms:

depopulate; desolate

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "desolate" is one way to...):

reduce; shrink (reduce in size; reduce physically)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Derivation:

desolation (an event that results in total destruction)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Leave someone who needs or counts on you; leave in the lurch

Example:

The mother deserted her children

Synonyms:

abandon; desert; desolate; forsake

Classified under:

Verbs of thinking, judging, analyzing, doubting

Hypernyms (to "desolate" is one way to...):

leave (go and leave behind, either intentionally or by neglect or forgetfulness)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "desolate"):

expose (abandon by leaving out in the open air)

walk out (leave suddenly, often as an expression of disapproval)

ditch (forsake)

maroon; strand (leave stranded or isolated with little hope of rescue)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s somebody

Derivation:

desolation (sadness resulting from being forsaken or abandoned)

Credits

 Context examples: 

In this desolate condition I advanced forward, and soon got upon firm ground, where I sat down on a bank to rest myself, and consider what I had best do.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

If it were grim and desolate upon the English border, however, what can describe the hideous barrenness of this ten times harried tract of France?

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

When little Vladimir finally relinquished her, with assurances that he was 'desolated to leave so early', she was ready to rest, and see how her recreant knight had borne his punishment.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

I had heard the word, and I knew it stood for a horrible kind of punishment common enough among the buccaneers, in which the offender is put ashore with a little powder and shot and left behind on some desolate and distant island.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

The party drove off in very good spirits; Sir Walter prepared with condescending bows for all the afflicted tenantry and cottagers who might have had a hint to show themselves, and Anne walked up at the same time, in a sort of desolate tranquillity, to the Lodge, where she was to spend the first week.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Next morning I met the whole family at the coach office, and saw them, with a desolate heart, take their places outside, at the back.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Know that, one by one, my friends were snatched away; I was left desolate.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

That night we pitched our camp immediately under the cliff—a most wild and desolate spot.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

At Ferndean, a manor-house on a farm he has, about thirty miles off: quite a desolate spot.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

I bemoaned my desolate widow and fatherless children.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)