DESOLATE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does desolate mean? 

• DESOLATE (adjective)
  The adjective DESOLATE has 2 senses:

1. providing no shelter or sustenance

2. crushed by grief

  Familiarity information: DESOLATE used as an adjective is rare.

• DESOLATE (verb)
  The verb DESOLATE has 3 senses:

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

2. reduce in population

3. cause extensive destruction or ruin utterly

  Familiarity information: DESOLATE used as a verb is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DESOLATE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Providing no shelter or sustenance

Synonyms:

bare; barren; bleak; desolate; stark

Context example:

a stark landscape

Similar:

inhospitable (unfavorable to life or growth)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Crushed by grief

Context example:

a low desolate wail

Similar:

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

• DESOLATE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they desolate    ... he / she / it desolates   
Past simple: desolated   
Past participle: desolated   
-ing form: desolating   

Sense 1

Meaning:

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

Classified under:

Verbs of thinking, judging, analyzing, doubting

Synonyms:

abandon; desert; desolate; forsake

Context example:

The mother deserted her children

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)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Reduce in population

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

depopulate; desolate

Context example:

The epidemic depopulated the countryside

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:

Cause extensive destruction or ruin utterly

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

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

Context example:

The enemy lay waste to the countryside after the invasion

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)

 Context examples 

The desolate feeling with which I went abroad, deepened and widened hourly.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

I was desolate and afraid, and full of woe and terror; but when that beautiful sun began to climb the horizon life was to me again.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

During this time we traversed a barren and forbidding country, which alternated between stony desert and desolate marshes full of many wild-fowl, upon the north and east of the cliffs.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

For an hour I saw nothing but the naked, desolate sea.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Storm followed storm, and between the storms there was the silence, broken only by the boom of the surf on the desolate shore, where the salt spray rimmed the beach with frozen white.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

Shall I create another like yourself, whose joint wickedness might desolate the world.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

It is a peculiarly desolate plain.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

As for Buck, wearying of the pursuit, he returned to the desolated camp.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

It was the same vehicle whence, a year ago, I had alighted one summer evening on this very spot—how desolate, and hopeless, and objectless!

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

And in a lower tone to Fanny, “I shall have only a desolate house to hurry from. Your brother will find my ideas of time and his own very different to-morrow.”

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)