desolate

The Burning Man festival, which takes place each year in the desolate Black Rock Desert in Nevada about 120 miles north of Reno, kicked off on Aug. 30 and runs through Sept. 7.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 5, 2026

While it might look desolate now, the hope is that some insects and plant species will eventually colonise the ground either sides of the tracks.

From BBC ● Aug. 25, 2026

"A fire is devastating. People who want to come will come anyway. But it’s not the same seeing the green hills as seeing them completely desolate and black."

From Barron's ● Jul. 26, 2026

On the desolate dunes of the Outer Banks, the Wright brothers conquered the sky in 1903, proving that controlled, powered flight was no longer a human fantasy.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 9, 2026

I took the emptiness of Abuelo’s room inside myself, the cold, stippled walls desolate and hard.

From "When I Was Puerto Rican" by Esmeralda Santiago

But your misrepresentation which pained me most, in fact desolates me to the extent that I am unfit for work, is your statement that I weigh 200 Ib.

From Time Magazine Archive

The sudden death of Leontes' young son desolates him.

From Time Magazine Archive

He visits Barbara's soup kitchen shelter and proves with an open checkbook that he can bribe the poor and buy the Army, which desolates Barbara.

From Time Magazine Archive

You have no idea of the ennui that desolates the hemispheres.

From The Cross of Berny by Florence Fendall

I leave you to imagine," said Morley, pathetically, "how it desolates me to forego the pleasure.

From The Trimmed Lamp, and other Stories of the Four Million by O. Henry

Hospital director Dr Muhammad Abu Salima has called on the WHO and the UN to help the medical teams and patients "leave this desolated place".

From BBC ● Nov. 19, 2023

She walked alone through its desolated main street, Khreschatyk.

From New York Times ● Nov. 4, 2022

At the same time, Wallerstein could offer a mild reassurance: "It would certainly not be great, but it is not necessarily the desolated moonscape that people sometimes imagine it would be."

From Salon ● Oct. 7, 2022

Even in the depths of the pandemic — even when the world locked down, leaving billions isolated and desolated — there were those who danced.

From Seattle Times ● Oct. 16, 2021

Still—I was desolated when he climbed away and headed back west.

From "Code Name Verity" by Elizabeth Wein

When D’Amore isn’t speaking — and for most of those three minutes and 40 seconds, she is silent — her body language is desolating.

From Salon ● Sep. 1, 2019

Unrelated begins in sociable aimlessness on an Italian holiday that becomes subtly desolating.

From The Guardian ● Aug. 18, 2019

“The simple way...to put an end to the savage and desolating war now waged by the slaveholders, is to strike down slavery itself, the primal cause of that war.”

From Textbooks ● Jan. 18, 2018

It sounds as if your mother is relatively young herself, so this is a diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer’s which is even more desolating.

From Slate ● Jul. 20, 2015

But the flowers, the smell, the movement of the leaves persist, rich, mesmerizing, desolating, infused with grief.

From "Cat's Eye" by Margaret Atwood