Other forms: wastelands
A wasteland is barren land where nothing useful grows. An industrial wasteland, a cultural wasteland, turn it into a wasteland.
The figurative use is now the commoner, and calling something a cultural wasteland is a familiar and lazy insult. Eliot's poem fixed the word in the language. Ground left as wasteland often becomes surprisingly rich in wildlife.
1nounwastelandBarren land where nothing useful grows.
“The old factory site is now a wasteland of broken concrete and weeds.”
wasteland is land.
Old English weste land, from a Latin root meaning empty. Waste and vast are relatives.
Old English
weste land — wasteland
Middle English
wast lond
English, today
wasteland
Middle English wast lond, modification of earlier weste lond, from Old English weste land (“wasteland”); equivalent to waste + land.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA