desolation
noun
D. F. Fleming
Synonyms
- blue devils
- blues
- dejection
- depression
- despond
- despondence
- despondency
- disconsolateness
- dispiritedness
- doldrums
- dolefulness
- downheartedness
- dreariness
- dumps
- forlornness
- gloom
- gloominess
- glumness
- heartsickness
- joylessness
- melancholy
- miserableness
- mopes
- mournfulness
- oppression
- sadness
- sorrowfulness
- unhappiness
Examples of desolation in a Sentence
Siddhant Adlakha, Variety, 16 Feb. 2024
Editor’s picks For Straube, there’s a connection between the desolation in her music and geography.
—Julyssa Lopez, Rolling Stone, 7 Dec. 2023
Arrakis is not the sole setting for the film, either—like Caladan, the ancestral home planet of House Atreides for which Norway was a stunt double in the previous film, there are other worlds explored here that sharply contrast Arrakis’s burning red desolation.
—Charlie Hobbs, Condé Nast Traveler, 1 Mar. 2024
Our first glimpse of Samet, a tiny speck trudging across a blinding-white landscape, is a typical Ceylan overture: a lone figure dwarfed, spectacularly, by a terrain that reflects his inner desolation.
—Justin Chang, The New Yorker, 23 Feb. 2024
Her character’s inscrutable mien keeps John and the audience a little off-balance, though Erskine reveals glimmers of emotional desolation in Jane’s steady gaze.
—Kristen Baldwin, EW.com, 1 Feb. 2024
Israel makes a desolation and may call it peace
The doctrine that emerged out of the conflict was most famously articulated by IDF commander Gadi Eisenkot.
—Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post, 10 Nov. 2023
Quite recently, architecture has sparked her interest, and she was intrigued by our pre-interview chatter by the raw industrial desolation of Scott Avenue in Bushwick, location of the previous night’s Luar show.
—Mark Holgate, Vogue, 16 Feb. 2024
The first – only a missionary motivation of this kind can justify the sacrifices, the hierarchical deprivations, the regional desolation, that Putin asks of his population.
—Melik Kaylan, Forbes, 10 Feb. 2024
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'desolation.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
Middle English desolacion, desolacioun "state of distress or hardship, feeling of distress, affliction," borrowed from Anglo-French & Late Latin; Anglo-French desolacion, borrowed from Late Latin dēsōlātiōn-, dēsōlātiō "abandonment, solitude," from Latin dēsōlāre "to leave all alone, forsake, empty of inhabitants" + -tiōn-, -tiō, suffix of verbal action — more at desolate entry 1
14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 1
Articles Related to desolation
Dictionary Entries Near desolation
Cite this Entry
“Desolation.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/desolation. Accessed 19 Apr. 2024.
Copy Citation
Kids Definition
desolation
noun
Share