Desolate means empty, abandoned and bleak. A moor in the rain, a shut-down factory, a beach in February.
The word does two jobs and they share a mood. Of a place, it means bare and deserted, with nothing living and nobody coming. Of a person, it means utterly wretched, as in desolate with grief. English lets the landscape and the feeling stand for each other here, which is why writers reach for it so often. The noun desolation covers both, and the verb, to be desolated by news, is formal and rare.
1adjectivedesolateEmpty, bare and abandoned.
“They crossed a desolate stretch of moor.”
2adjectiveutterlyUtterly miserable and alone.
“She was desolate after the funeral.”
Also accepted in games: deserted
Desolate is left alone. Latin dēsōlō meant to leave alone, to make lonely and to lay waste all at once, so the empty landscape and the miserable person are one idea in the word.
Middle English
desolat
English, today
desolate
From Middle English desolat. See Etymology 2 and -ate for more.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Sharper Adjectives, A Man Called Ove
First appears in chapter 12 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word