desert Hear it!

desert¹ Definition

de·sert (di zʉrt′)

transitive verb

  1. to forsake (someone or something that one ought not to leave); abandon
  2. to leave (one's post, military service, etc.) without permission
  3. to fail (someone) when most needed

Etymology: Fr déserter < LL desertare < desertus, pp. of L deserere, to desert, lit., to disjoin < de-, from + serere, to join < IE base *ser-, to join, place in a row > Gr eirein, to fasten in rows, L series

intransitive verb

to leave one's post, military duty, etc. without permission and with no intent to return, or, in war, in order to avoid hazardous duty

Related Forms:

desert² Definition

des·ert (dez′ərt)

noun

  1. an uncultivated region without inhabitants; wilderness
  2. a dry, barren, sandy region, often extremely hot

Etymology: ME < OFr < LL(Ec) desertum, a desert, for L deserta < desertus: see desert

adjective

  1. of a desert or deserts
  2. wild and uninhabited a desert island
desert³ Definition

de·sert (di zʉrt′)

noun

  1. the fact of deserving reward or punishment
  2. deserved reward or punishment to get one's just deserts
  3. the quality of deserving reward; merit

Etymology: ME & OFr deserte < deservir: see deserve

desert Synonyms

desert

n.

waste, sand, wastelands, sahara, wilderness, badlands, barren plains, barrens, arid region, deserted region, sand dunes, lava beds, uncultivated expanse, infertile area, infertile region, salt flats, alkali flats, abandoned country, dust bowl; see also wilderness. See syn. study at waste.

Famous deserts include: Sahara, Kalahari, Kara Kum, Great Basin, Sonoran, Painted, Death Valley, Mojave, Atakama, Negev, Arabian, Rub" al Khali, Great Sandy, Dahna, Patagonian, Persian, Samnan, Tarim, Sinkiang, Gobi, Shamo, Great Victoria, Great Australian, Gidi, Libyan.

desert Synonyms

desert

v.

  1. To abandon in time of trouble

    forsake, leave, quit; see abandon 1, 2.

  2. To leave military service, one's post, etc.

    defect, be absent without leave, abandon one's post, sneak off, make off, abscond, run away from duty, run away from military service, go AWOL*, decamp, violate one's oath, leave unlawfully, go over the hill*, rat*, take French leave*, play truant*; see also abandon 2.

    Antonyms obey*, stay*, do one's duty. See syn. study at abandon.abandon.

desert Usage Examples

Object

  • cove: Take your pick from deserted coves, pretty fishing ports or the busy resort of Salou.
  • beach: The local fauna does not desert this beach in winter.
  • island: Their search lasted 12 years and took them to many remote and often deserted Scottish islands.
  • village: Saxon life Capture the atmosphere of Saxon life in our deserted village.
  • airfield: At last you can find the name of that deserted airfield or charming old pub!
  • street: But the deserted streets hold a special magic at night.

Adjective modifier

  • arid: Equally, tho, the Americas possess a range of arid deserts with a more generic scope.
  • barren: They might be like a beautiful garden or a barren desert.
  • Arabian: Travelers on their way through the Arabian desert to Mount Sinai, on some rare occasions encounter such storms.
  • stony: To begin with the city was laid out on a desert surface of yellow sand and grayish gravel over an underlying harder stony desert.
  • Libyan: And then on to oil exploration work in the Libyan desert.
  • featureless: But the featureless desert led many Tomahawks to wander away like so many lost patrols, according to Pentagon studies.

Modifies a noun

  • island: A desert island disk type of an album you'll want to cherish for the rest of your life.
  • oasis: The project was set up to empower women in the desert oasis town of Siwa, Egypt.
  • safari: It is famous for its life-style shopping, horse-races, golf courses, beaches and desert safaris.
  • locust: A desert locust can eat its own body weight of vegetation every day.
  • sand: The desert sands buried the Indian [ Central Asian ] cities.
  • dune: Thick sandstones formed by desert dunes are also present, particularly in the Vale of Eden.

Noun used with modifier

  • lava: This amazing country is full of incredible landscapes featuring glaciers, hot springs, geysers, active volcanoes and vast lava deserts.
  • semi: A few seen in semi desert areas, on the road from Nouakchott to Chinguetti.
desert Quotes

On est un peu seul dans le de¤  sert. öOn est seul aussi chez les hommes. One is a little bit alone in the desert. One is also alone among others.

—Saint-Exupe¤  ry, Antoine de

I have horrible nightmares of Sir Almwroth Wright's limp sentences wandering through the arid desert of his mind looking for dropped punctuation marks.

—West, Dame Rebecca formerly  Cecily Isabel Fairfield

The true call of the desert, of the mountains, or the sea, is their silenceöfree of the networks of dead speech.

—Stark, Dame Freya Madeleine

As I came through the desert thus it was, As I came through the desert: All was black, In heaven no single star, on earth no track; A brooding hush without a stir or note; The air so thick it clotted in my throat.

—Thomson,James pseudonym 'BV',ByssheVanolis

What shall we do without you? Think where we are. Carlyle has led us all out into the desert, and he has left us there.

—Clough, Arthur Hugh

For me, exploration was a personal venture. I did not go to the Arabian desert to collect plants nor to make a map; such things were incidental. At heart I knew that to write or even to talk of my travels was to tarnish the achievement. I went there to find peace in the hardship of desert travel and the company of desert people. I set myself a goal on these journeys, and, although the goal itself was unimportant, its attainment had to be worth every effort and sacrifice.

—Thesiger, Sir Wilfred Patrick

   Your anger was a climate I inhabited like a desert in a dry frigid weather of high thin air and ivory sun, sand dunes the wind lifted into stinging clouds that blinded and choked me where the only ice was in the blood.

—Piercy, Marge

I asked you to be the thunder and lightning of Desert Storm.You were all of that and more.

—Schwarzkopf, H Norman

Oh! that desert were my dwelling-place, With one fair spirit for my minister, That I might all forget the human race, And, hating no one, love but only her!

—Rochdale

   Leonora, Leonora, How the word rollsöLeonoraö Lion-like, in full-mouthed sound, Marching o'er the metric ground With a tawny tread sublime; So your name moves, Leonora, Down my desert rhyme.

—Craik, Dinah Maria ne¤  e Mulock

Fair Italy! Thou art the garden of the world, the home Of all Art yields, and Nature can decree; Even in thy desert, what is like to thee?

—Rochdale

He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.

—Bible (Old Testament)

Givea manthesecure possessionof a bleak rock, and he will turn it into a garden; give him a nine years' lease on a garden, and he will convert it into a desert† The magic ofturns sand to gold.

—Young, Arthur

These are the gardens of the Desert, these The unshorn fields, boundless and beautiful, For which the speech of England has no nameö The Prairies.

—Bryant,William Cullen

It wasn't exactly carelessness; her knowledge of literate English contained such vast areas of desert that she took it for granted that half of what she wrote would be meaningless to her.

—Chandler, Raymond

I met a traveller from an antique land Who said:Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert.

—Shelley, Percy Bysshe

In squandering wealth was his peculiar art: Nothing went unrewarded, but desert. Beggared by fools, whom still he found too late: He had his jest, and they had his estate.

—Dryden,John

No horse's cry was that, most like the roar Of some pained desert lion, who all day Hath trailed the hunter's javelin in his side, And comes at night to die upon the sand.

—Arnold, Matthew

There was nothing but pain in the desert, for human beings and animals alike.Lifewaspain.Only indeathwas there relief.

—Moorhouse, Geoffrey

Man has wrested from nature the power to make the world a desert or to make the deserts bloom. There isno evil in the atomöonly in men's souls.

—Stevenson, Adlai E(wing)

A thousand fantasies Begin to throng into my memory Of calling shapes, and beckoning shadows dire, And airy tongues, that syllable men's names On sands, and shores, and desert wildernesses.

—Milton,John

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert. And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water: in the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes.

—Bible (Old Testament)

To say nothing is out here isincorrect; tosay the desert is stingy with everything except space and light, stoneand earth is closer to the truth.

—Heat-Moon,William Least originally  WilliamTrogdon

Full manya gem of purest ray serene The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear: Full manya flower is born to blush unseen And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

—Gray,Thomas

But he was never, well, What I call A Sportsman: For forty days He went out into the desert öAnd never shot anything.

—Sitwell, Sir (Francis) Osbert

Zuleika, on a desert island, would have spent most of her time in looking for a man's footprint.

—Beerbohm, Sir (Henry) Max(imilian)