Sample Sentences for
desolate
grouped by contextual meaning
(editor-reviewed)

desolate as in:  felt desolate

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I heard a low desolate wail.
desolate = very sad
Show 3 more with this contextual meaning
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    She felt desolate when her boyfriend died in a car accident.
    desolate = very sad and alone
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    I was up on the fifth floor and I had a view of the playground, which was always of course utterly desolate.  (source)
    desolate = sad and lonely
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    I was desolate and afraid, and full of woe and terror.  (source)
    desolate = miserable (sad and lonely)
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Show 10 more with 6 word variations
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    It was dark when I awoke; I felt cold also, and half frightened, as it were, instinctively, finding myself so desolate.  (source)
    desolate = miserable and alone
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    And no matter, for the sadness was at her center, the desolated center where the self that was no self made its home.†  (source)
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    In complete desolation, I looked at the world above.  (source)
    desolation = misery
    standard suffix: The suffix "-tion", converts a verb into a noun that denotes the action or result of the verb. Typically, there is a slight change in the ending of the root verb, as in action, education, and observation.
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    Once again I had the desolating sense of having all along ignored what was finest in him.  (source)
    desolating = sad or miserable
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    I had never seen him look more desolately alone, and for a fleeting second I felt almost sorry for him.  (source)
    desolately = in a manner that is extremely sad or miserable
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    There was nothing memorable in its all too typical poverty and desolateness.†  (source)
    standard suffix: The suffix "-ness" converts an adjective to a noun that means the quality of. This is the same pattern you see in words like darkness, kindness, and coolness.
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    ...each leaves the passionate lover, or the no less passionate hater, forlorn and desolate by the withdrawal of his subject.  (source)
    desolate = miserable and lonely
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    Must they also leave women and children and helpless negroes to starve in a country which they had desolated?†  (source)
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    The flames, the fear, the feeling of utter desolation were too much for him to handle.  (source)
    desolation = a feeling of extreme sadness or misery--often with loneliness
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    Kumalo stood shocked at the frightening and desolating words. [That Jarvis is leaving]  (source)
    desolating = making him feel very sad and alone
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desolate as in:  a desolate place

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The photos show the desolate surface of the moon.
desolate = empty, providing no shelter or sustenance
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    It is in her book of desolate desert photographs.
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    He squinted at the desolate landscape and shook his head.  (source)
    desolate = lacking life and that which would support it
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    And when the time comes to die, I'll find the wildest, loneliest, most desolate spot there is.  (source)
    desolate = empty (of life)
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Show 10 more with 2 word variations
  • •
    It was quiet and desolate, except for the goat still tied to the tree, bleating for freedom.  (source)
    desolate = empty of life
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    The castle stood as before, reared high above a waste of desolation.  (source)
    desolation = lacking life and that which would support it
    standard suffix: The suffix "-tion", converts a verb into a noun that denotes the action or result of the verb. Typically, there is a slight change in the ending of the root verb, as in action, education, and observation.
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    The land was barren and desolate.  (source)
    desolate = empty, providing no shelter, water, or food
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    Down in the west the setting sun had left a streak of fiery red, which glared upon the desolation for an instant, like a sullen eye, and frowning lower, lower, lower yet, was lost in the thick gloom of darkest night.  (source)
    desolation = a place that provides no shelter or sustenance
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    The night-crawlers had retired, but ripe chinaberries drummed on the roof when the wind stirred, and the darkness was desolate with the barking of distant dogs.  (source)
    desolate = empty, lonely, providing no support
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    I try in vain to be persuaded that the pole is the seat of frost and desolation; it ever presents itself to my imagination as the region of beauty and delight.  (source)
    desolation = emptiness that provides no shelter or sustenance
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    Near the slope where once cotton stalks had stood, their brown bolls popping with tiny puffs of cotton, the land was charred, desolate, black, still steaming from the night.  (source)
    desolate = empty (of life)
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    In a region somewhere between the Everlasting Forest and Outer wilderbeastia, remarkable only for its desolation, Wonderlanders who not long before had been law-abiding, family-loving folk slaved away in Redd's most notorious labor camp, Blaxik.  (source)
    desolation = lacking life and that which would support it
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    Have you forgiven the Boy for the violence he did you in the Hall of Images in the desolate palace of accursed Charn?  (source)
    desolate = empty (of life)
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    Billy drove through a scene of even greater desolation.†  (source)
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desolate as in:  desolated the region

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Fires desolated the region.
desolated = destroyed and emptied it of living things
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    The armies fought over the region for years and desolated it in the process.
    desolated = destroyed
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    The band of egwugwu moved like a furious whirlwind to Enoch's compound and with machete and fire reduced it to a desolate heap.  (source)
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    Shall I create another like yourself, whose joint wickedness might desolate the world.  (source)
    desolate = destroy or make miserable
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Show 10 more with 5 word variations
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    Gashes the size of football fields would appear at the mountain base, leaving a desolation of broken roots and upturned trees where once there had been a forest.  (source)
    desolation = destroyed place
    standard suffix: The suffix "-tion", converts a verb into a noun that denotes the action or result of the verb. Typically, there is a slight change in the ending of the root verb, as in action, education, and observation.
  • •
    You offer me empty lands and desolations, yet deny me the castles I require to reward my lords and bannermen.†  (source)
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    As for Buck, wearying of the pursuit, he returned to the desolated camp.  (source)
    desolated = destroyed and emptied of people
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    It is a scene terrifically desolate. In a thousand spots the traces of the winter avalanche may be perceived, where trees lie broken and strewed on the ground, some entirely destroyed, others bent, leaning upon the jutting rocks of the mountain or transversely upon other trees.  (source)
    desolate = destroyed
  • •
    It filled me with indescribable terror to think how swiftly that desolating change had come.  (source)
    desolating = destroying or emptying
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    Though the desolation had not yet arrived, [it] was still in the air, it was certain as man could make it.  (source)
    desolation = destruction
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    —ENCHANTMENTS AND DESOLATIONS seemed to ask nothing better than to weep.†  (source)
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    The Martians, I thought, had gone on and left the country desolated, seeking food elsewhere.  (source)
    desolated = destroyed or emptied
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    Have a care; I will work at your destruction, nor finish until I desolate your heart, so that you shall curse the hour of your birth.  (source)
    desolate = destroy (make miserable)
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    Bard had rebuilt the town in Dale and men had gathered to him from the Lake and from South and West, and all the valley had become tilled again and rich, and the desolation was now filled with birds and blossoms in spring and fruit and feasting in autumn.  (source)
    desolation = empty, destroyed place
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